Cooking as a procrastination from doctoral studies

There's something that is very confusing about being a PhD student. I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it's a constant sense that I should know exactly what it is that I want to do, or that I should have some very explicit plan that I should be following. However, at this juncture, I have no idea what I'm doing and where I'll ultimately end up. Maybe this is why I have turned to cooking as a source of procrastination. There's nothing like baking 4 dozen delicious "brown sugar" cookies when I should actually be reading endless amounts of journal articles, or writing a 30 page paper.

I'm thinking that there's probably more of a sense of accomplishment for me when I make some really yummy food that brings a smile to my young son, fiance, and friends' faces. These papers I have to write often feel like an annoying exercise that I have to engage in for a grade, and ultimately, for a degree, but seem to lack some depth of real importance to the world.

I entered into a PhD program, specifically in education, in the hopes that I could help to make the world a better place. I felt like the education system was a great vehicle for that since it's what I consider the trenches, i.e., where all the action takes place. I believe it to be the main socializing agent in the U.S. Don't believe me? Well, think about this then: once kids turn 5 (with the exception of those who are home schooled), they spend most of their days and a good chunk of their developmental years 5 to 18 (or up to 22 if they go to college) at school. Kids spend more of their time with their peers and teachers then with their own parents if you really count the waking hours.

Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. All of that doesn't really matter for the purpose of this blog. This blog is for me to develop my hobby of cooking as something other than just a procrastination mechanism. I really want to be a good cook. I want to be one of those people who instinctively knows how to combine flavors and textures to make an amazing piece of art that can be eaten. I also want to make yummy food that revolves around local, sustainable, and organic ingredients. So, this is my experiment. I'm hoping to bog helps me to track my development. That I can use it as a journal as a way to both see how far I go with this cooking hobby, and where this PhD thing will take me. My hopes are that I will be good at both, i.e., at being a good cook, and being a good PhD student. Thus, the PhD chef is born.