Uncovering Flavor Deprivation.

When I moved to Jerusalem, and finally had a stocked kitchen, and went about cooking a proper meal the first time, I had this intense sensual experience with my food, like time itself had slowed down and flavors had new dimension. The green beans and asparagus, the purple cabbage, the giant carrots... The peppers, the tomatoes, the dates... the greens, the melons, the olives... not to mention the fruit... It was all just sensual from the moment you smelled the produce in the market, to the release of the aromas while cooking, to the eating of the food. I felt like one of those chefs in the movies, who would stand in the market and pick up the fruit just to get a giant whiff. I was a new vegan, and now I was cooking ultra healthy with vegetables in combinations that I never had before; tasting flavors I'd never tasted before. Then there were the fresh spices. I literally would stand at my counter and just smell my bottle of paprika because it was that good (in the US, to me, paprika was almost like a throwaway spice, mainly used for color, so I was amazed that it would become one of my favorite spices). I was having this awakening, so to speak. But I didn't fully understand what I was going through. I didn't really consider that every item of produce that I'd purchased simply had more intense flavor. Jerusalem produce just tastes better in general. 

I felt a sensory deprivation when I moved back home, and once again, I didn't fully understand what I was experiencing. I lamented the shopping experience: the spices and things are all packaged neatly in glass and you can't smell the freshness of it before you buy it. I also lamented the lack of fresh spices. I found a solution: to simply buy them by the seed and start grinding them. But I didn't consider that I was experiencing an entire deprivation of flavor in general, and that even the produce that was in season just wasn't as good... 

And, again, I still had hope because I thought it was just the tropical fruit... So instead of looking for mangoes, which were almost always disappointing, I would instead try peaches. Local organic Michigan fruit is a beautiful thing. But the peach harvest was destroyed by a frost when I moved back, so all the peaches were shipped in from Georgia, and the local fruit market closed because of corona. Neither of those things fully recovered before we moved away. And we couldn't afford to live on the expensive farmer's market prices. We had a few moments of intensity, but they were always short-lived. So, I didn't get to dive into the good flavors the local farms had to offer.

I simply lost the motivation to cook. I didn't fully understand why.

And here in Germany it's quite similar. Unless you're growing your own tomatoes, or buying expensive produce from a farmer's market, you are getting flavorless, lackluster fruits and vegetables, maybe with some exceptions. I never knew what I was missing out on until I lived in Israel. And I'm sure that people from tropical countries have had the same experience as me. No more juicy, mouth-watering papayas, mangoes, or citrus fruits... so you search for flavor elsewhere...

Meat and cheese have a lot of great flavor, and are the main flavor drivers in the West. I imagine people who move from tropical countries to Europe or North America give up on the produce and end up basically becoming enthusiastic carnivores in the pursuit of good flavor... The problem is, most Americans just eat really fatty, sugary, salty foods, blasted with artificial flavors. I can go to restaurants where I can't eat anything because every single item has dairy (I am lactose intolerant), or the non-dairy items are simply pitiful. Sometimes I'd rather eat a piece of cheesy pizza and suffer later, than eat a pitiful, wilting, bitter salad that's just as fattening because it's doused in oil, but leaves me hungry. No wonder so many Americans "hate" vegetables. Americans often think they're eating healthy when they simply are not, because of misinformation. Some people don't want to change their food habits because it's one of their few joys in life, but they don't realize it's actually the food they eat that is making them feel miserable... but that's another topic...  I just can't go back to that way of life, because I hate constantly feeling lethargic and depressed. I love feeling energetic, ready for life, and generally in a good mood. I still indulge, but I do it strategically and a lot less often, because I now know I would rather be bored with food and happy with life than the other way around. Still, it's somewhat of a loss.

Here in Germany, skipping over their delectable meats and cheeses, which are already next level to me, some of the best flavors are found in their breads and cakes. Germans have become masters in this area. Their flour has a different protein and gluten ratio, so their baked goods are just... different. Their sandwiches only require one slice of meat and one slice of cheese, because the bread is really the star. You hardly need condiments in your sandwiches, because fresh bread has actual moisture content and flavor. It can be dense or light, but it's always heavenly. They actually eat plain bread as a meal sometimes (which I still don't do yet). You've never had a proper giant pretzel until you've had a German pretzel. Even the cheap bread you can buy at Aldi's here is just better than anything you would get at an average bakery in the States, like Panera, for example. And the cakes... the cakes! I've never liked cake growing up. But here, they are never too sweet, never too dry, always perfectly moist, and never so heavy as to make you feel gross or sick. Everyone bakes them at home too. The teens in my youth group--yes, even the boys--can bake delectable cakes I could eat every day. And friends of mine put really interesting liqueur flavors in their cakes, which bring them to the next level. And the average bakery cakes are never dry, never too sweet... I actually like cake here.

But... the problem is, I can't live on cake and bread, and I don't want all the health problems that come with regularly eating meat and cheese, so... yes, I indulge from time-to-time, but maintaining my health means lately I just feel bored with food at home. Yesterday I acquired oranges shipped in from Israel, and they are the best oranges I've tasted in over three years... That intensity of flavor took me straight back to my first cooking experiences in Jerusalem. I was having flashbacks of the sensory experience. And now I'm realizing why I've lost my motivation to cook at home.

Jerusalem has ruined me.

I realize that sounds very depressing, but knowing this actually makes me feel hopeful. For the last few years I just thought there was something broken inside of me. I go into the kitchen and feel discouraged. I haven't been cooking like I used to. But now I know it's not just some unexplained symptom of life's challenges. I'm actually just feeling deprived. I've figured out what's discouraging me. It makes me determined to grow some of my own food, and to look for it in the right places. That gives me hope that food--even healthy food--can become a joy in my life again. 

Photo by Roxanne Desgagnés on Unsplash

Uncovering Maker's Anxiety

I’ve developed this anxiety. Naturally, if I am not making something, I am plotting how to make something--this is a part of my personality. But no matter how much I plot, lately I’m finding it more and more stressful to start the actual doing. And this stress grows stronger each year. When I finally have all the resources to do the thing, I find myself paralyzed. And if I get myself to the starting point, the process goes slow because I want it to be perfect, and I’m not willing to try new things that might lead to failure. I'm afraid of wasting my energy on useless things. This keeps me from learning or growing in this area of my life, leading me to devalue it, neglecting to see that it is so integral to my being, and directly linked to my own personal sanity. 

Lately, instead of making things, I’m going on Pinterest and watching sped-up videos of other people making things. I often laugh at the crap people think is worth making and then I come under my own judgment, unable to make anything “crappy” because I'm unwilling to spend time making crappy things in order to learn how to make good things. I do get a vicarious sense of accomplishment from watching other people make things, which keeps me going for a while. But the overall takeaway is unhealthy, because it creates a growing sense of failure, seeing other people make things perfectly and quickly the first time (which is an illusion created by editing). It also creates a false sense of how long it takes to make real things, and an impatience for the making process.

I'm realizing that my particular brand of makers anxiety has a lot to do with my lifestyle of making massive life changes that involve going overseas. But there's even more under the surface. My anxiety is also tied to the expectations I have of myself, guilt I have over not reusing literally everything, exhaustion from wasted time pursuing fruitless endeavors, and perfectionism. I'm sharing this with you all, not to gain sympathy--I've made my own choices and counted the cost--but to maybe help someone in the process. All my upheaval has forced me to tackle it head-on, when many of us don't get the same opportunities living more settled lives (I don't mean this in a condescending way: settled lives have many advantages people like me do not get). And maybe this will start good conversations that will help us makers motivate each other.

Moving overseas, I couldn’t just throw all my things in boxes, throw those boxes in a truck and store those boxes in the new place (which is what most of us do; what I used to do). I was not about to pay to ship junk across the ocean, and I had only a limited amount of luggage space and arm strength to carry my most immediate needs with me in the airport. So, I had to deliberate about every single possession and whether or not I care to suffer the cost or weight of keeping it. Not just one time, but three times. And this means every time I finally had a good set-up for making things--a proper space, proper furniture, proper tools, good lighting, and enough materials, I would only have a short time of making things before I had to get rid of literally everything and start over.

The process of getting rid of things is one thing. When you have to spend energy deliberating over whether every single item you have is worth keeping, you stop acquiring useless junk. Even then, you still somehow end up with it. Needless to say, shopping is rarely a recreational event in my life now. Even when it is, I won't get things I like without thinking a lot about where I can store it, if it would be easy to bring overseas, if it's worth keeping in the long term, or if I'm willing to only use it for a season. This also goes for my stash of art supplies. I have stopped just buying fun things that inspire creativity. I've pared things down to only buying what I am actually likely to make. But this becomes very boring and uninspiring.

The process of building up your resources in a new country is also quite painstaking. You think, “oh, I’m in a first world country, I can get whatever I need.” And that’s true, but you can’t get everything you want, or everything you’ve grown accustomed to using. And the process of finding the things that are at least comparable to what you normally use is long and arduous, and involves many hours of trying new things, of going to stores you would think have what you need, only to find that these items are found in other types of stores because this culture categorizes stuff differently. It takes a full year before learning that new categorization, and before obtaining new things no longer feels like an “event.” 

Then you have to get used to what things cost in the new place. For example, I wouldn't spend $250 on an office chair in the states, because you can get comfortable ones at Staples for $50. Or for less at a thrift store. Call me cheap, but I went the last entire year sitting in uncomfortable chairs never finding anything in my price range. When it's uncomfortable just to sit at your own desk, you avoid doing it. and then you avoid doing things you would do at a desk, and then it starts affecting your work habits... I finally bit the bullet and bought an average quality chair for 150 euros. The same goes for little things that I might get for making things, like fabrics, for example. I still haven't found a shop like SAS in Phoenix; a warehouse of gorgeous out-of-season fabrics for dirt cheap. I still haven't found a place where there are multiple fabric shops on one street filled with all kinds of interesting Middle Eastern fabrics, like Jaffa street in Jerusalem. Heck, they didn't even sell cotton thread at the "fabric superstore" in Mannheim; only polyester. I guess I'm going to find these things online, but then you lose some of your motivation which comes from seeing all the possibilities at the store... It seems petty to me to even discuss these things, but the amount of time and effort I've spent getting rid of and then re-acquiring things has added up to a sort of paralysis: what's the point of starting the process of learning a craft when by the time I get a good flow going, I'm going to have to overhaul my entire supply, space, and lifestyle? What's the point of trying to make something when I'm not even sure I can find the right supplies?

People who live here can't help fully, because they can't possibly know the differences in items, and can't explain how things here are different from my world, because they don't know my world. And that's okay. It comes with the territory.

You might say, "Susan, don't be silly, you have Amazon. Buy online!" And I do... for certain things. But there are multiple problems here which I could rant about, but it's just hard to buy online when you don't know the quality, or can't perceive details like color, size, impact, etc. 

Then there's a lot of weird feelings that are attached to stuff that we don't usually deal with.

The first time moving back home from Israel, I went through a process with the things I had stored at my in-laws house. Suddenly I'm looking at boxes of literal junk, wondering what the heck I was thinking keeping such useless things. It was also like looking at a time capsule of my life three years before seeing my habits with "things," with new eyes. Over the course of a year, I went through my things, box by box, trying to pare down even more, and uncovering all kinds of weird guilt, expectations, and attachments.

One example is my box of school papers. I had a huge box of papers from elementary to high school, that I was planning to use to make recycled paper. How cool and epic would it be to make new handmade journals from recycled paper I used in elementary school? That would be an awesome way to reduce my carbon footprint. It was the intention for keeping such things. But on the other hand, this huge box was taking up space in my mother-in-law's house, and I didn't want literal garbage to take up space and energy in my life, or in the life of my family members. So I put the box in recycling. I cried. I gave up the dream. At least it was recycled.

Then I went through my old clothes, and decided I would mine them for fabrics while trying to save money. But suddenly I was facing another paralysis: How can I cut up this shirt when there is a homeless person who could wear it? This jacket might not fit me anymore, but it might fit a kid in a shelter who is cold. The shirts just sat in a pile never being cut up because of actual guilt. When Christmas was around the corner, I forced myself to cut the shirts, and I was once again, crying, and listening to intense drum and bass to get through it. How can more literal garbage be causing me so much agony? After the traumatic cutting process, I did end up making all kinds of things from these mined fabrics: neck-warmers with cute embroidered animal faces from Dustin's old dress shirts, throw pillows for my dad's new house from my old jeans and khakis, cute little earbud cases from corduroy, and little angel ornaments from lace ribbon.

Just uncovering these things, and realizing what I'm dealing with is helping me feel motivation again. I've been through a lot with my stuff, and it's okay to feel a bit overwhelmed about it sometimes. It's good to acknowledge what I've been through, because then I can begin to see a way through it, a way to stop carrying it around in the form of anxiety and paralysis. I can remind myself that it's still worth it to make things. I can remind myself that it's vital for my mental health, for my sanity. It's good to see the two sides of being resourceful: the satisfaction of finding new use for old things, but also the potential for stacked up guilt when I fail to be resourceful. I can take the good and leave the bad. Guilt only leads to more failure. Then I've judged others too harshly, and because of that, I'm living under my own judgment when it comes to making things. I need to stop that. I need to allow mistakes. Time spent making crappy things is not wasted if it means learning to do better.

Maybe this is sparking something in you, fellow maker. Maybe you have a stack of old fabrics you have never touched because you got it from your grandma who has passed away. Maybe you have a bunch of unexplored guilt keeping you from being able to do the things that make you sane. Maybe you have unattainable goals preventing you from moving forward. Maybe you have paralysis when you want to start a project because of what you've been through with your "stuff." I'd love to hear about it, to feel like I'm not the only one. Or maybe you have strategies for motivating yourself when this happens that can help inspire us.

Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash