(no subject)
Twice in the last 24 hours, I have been doing something and suddenly had a flash of inspiration. Last night I was writing the copy for the 'Everything Cherry' webpage. I typed the sentence, "As a seasoning, cherry adds depth to pork, chicken, lamb and duck." Suddenly I had a flash of a cherry flavored meat rub. I thought for about 30 seconds about what made a good meat rub and the formula for this seasoning popped in my head. I haven't tried it yet but I have no doubt that it is going to be seriously yummy.
This morning I was looking at a recipe for mediterranean lamb with cucumber sauce. I looked at the flavors in the recipe and a formula for a mediterranean seasoning popped into my head. I took it a step farther and looked up an article on the mediterranean region and realized that it is a very diverse region and no one set of flavors could possibly represent it. Now, like the trio of italian seasonings, I am putting together a set of mediterranean seasonings.
That was easy. Often it is like that. I'm doing something seemingly unrelated and the connection is made and a new seasoning or blend is created.
Then there is the other side of creativity. The side that doesn't happen spontaneously but is the result of much labor. The business/marketing part of me will now ask Christopher and Kitty, 'Since I've got a few new seasonings, what else do we need to add?'. I have no idea now what will be decided but instead of seeing things come together spontaneously it will be looking at the end product and figuring out how to get there. It may involve, as it sometimes does, creating something that I don't even personally enjoy.
The discipline to be able to deliberately create is necessary if you need to regularly produce creative results. It is a very different feeling than when something just pops into place easily. Both are satisfying but in very different ways. I sometimes look at the products I've created. Some like winterspice sugar, burger salt, faerie dust, holiday spice blend or hearty beef blend just flowed together. When I use these products, I consider them little miracles. Other products like the peanut butter sugar, spicy citrus, the flavored peppercorns, or faerie free were a much more deliberate effort. When I look at these products, I often think, 'wow, that was really a lot of work' and there is the satisfaction that comes from having accomplished something from deliberate effort.