I was once the proud recipient of the Pumpkin Princess Prize – awarded by Scotland’s pre-eminent herb-blogger, The Hopeful Herbalist.
Was Miss Hopeful smoking her own herbs when she did so?
Don’t know, don’t care. I took the title seriously.
Actually, what my lovely blogger friend said was: “Award yourself the pumpkin princess crown!”
Which to my deliriously happy state of mind, meant much the same thing.
And now I wonder: if my tiny imperfect pumpkin could win me that regal honour, perhaps the next thing is my cooking? Or baking? Or floral arranging?
Let’s face it: It takes tremendous effort to be really bad at something.
A lot of trial and error is required. Mostly error, mind you.
Take my cooking and baking (please — someone has to).
I famously made a two-ingredient dish – cauliflower and cheese – and forgot the cheese.
The harder I tried, the worse my cooking got. I forgot half the ingredients, or doubled them — or burned the dish. Husband added ketchup, salt or spices to everything I cooked. Yegads! Ketchup!
I’d perfected the art of truly bad cooking.
But do you hear anyone giving me the title for worst borscht?
Perfectly pathetic pie?
Instead, they flock to stories of delicious dishes and beautiful bouquets. I’ve never understood it.
Meanwhile, we lesser folk never give up trying.
And still, our creations are catastrophic.
But consider this:
It takes a lot of work — and maybe even a strange type of talent — to turn out truly awful stuff.
So I think it’s time our efforts were acknowledged. Don’t you?
(Tee hee….)
