My group was surprised by the effectiveness of random
stimuli in the creative process, but over the weeks since our class I recognized
that I should not have been: it’s been something that I’ve been depending on
for years already.
One difficulty of following a vegan diet that isn’t necessarily
obvious is the risk of falling into a rut. Veganism requires that you incorporate
a healthy variety of foods into your diet in order to get proper, balanced nutrition…
but it’s easy to get comfortable with a small variety of staple dishes and
repeat them over and over again. For me, cooking is one of my major creative
outlets, and I stumbled accidentally into the technique of
random-stimulus-to-inspire-creativity when I started to receive a farm share
order through a CSA.
When you don’t know from week to week what you’ll be cooking
with, it inspires you. If you get watermelon radishes in the box of vegetables,
and you’ve never in your life eaten them before (let alone cooked with them!)
you have to just dive in and make an effort. Maybe you can find a recipe to
start from, and maybe you can’t… but it’s watermelon radishes you have to work
with, and that’s what you’re going to eat. It’s not that different from having
rubber bands to work with, when you come right down to it.
And sometimes, you end up with a great big piles of greens and you have to find a way to keep them interesting.
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