Don't Worry...I'm Not A Professional

Okay, so I love Nigella Lawson.  I love her accent.  I love her old-school Italian looks.  I love that she studied at Oxford.  I love that she uses the word "bolstering" in on-air 3 minute segments.  (I do not always love her recipes, but that in no way diminishes my desire to be her new best friend.)

I wanted to share this little interview because I think Nigella (if I may be permitted to be so familiar) hits it on the head when she talks about our fear of not being professionals.  While we are, as a country, running around trying to find the most common man to run for the highest office (President Obama aside, who is anything but your "Average Joe"), we are putting others on the expert pedestal who do not belong there.  We are so afraid of being exposed that we look for, and create, experts to follow.

As in other aspects of one's life, this act is disenfranchising.  It produces a fear in the individual that he or she doesn't know and in fact has no business doing what is most basic, most necessary, and at times, most intuitive (feeding oneself, raising children, making the bed, etc...).

And here is the best part:  WE DO IT TO OURSELVES.  We believe the "experts."  We do not call bulls**t.  We do not own that which is most basic to our survival.

Let us all be, in our personal lives, what Nigella refers to as passionate amateurs.  Let us, like MFK Fischer, learn about food and life and love through living openly, passionately, hungrily.

And, for heaven's sake, let us respect, not fear, expertise when it presents itself.  Right now we have it backwards:  We want experts in the kitchen and average Joes in the White House.  My New Years wish for us is that we right ourselves...that we eat and vote with eyes wide open!