CHOPPED CHAMPIONS WITH LIFE LESSONS

Chopped champions get crowned at the end of the Chopped show on Food Channel.

It’s a cooking competition that begins with four people working with strange food selections.

One contestant is chopped after the first course, then one after the main dish, the last after dessert.

Everyone finishes on time and no one stabs the others when they lose.

We should all aspire to such good manners?

It always starts out with the same basket of gag-reflex ingredients for each contestant.

The host reads the list and the audience tries not to hurl.

And every damn time these chefs whip up something under time constraints that looks better than expected.

Would I eat it?

Even if it looks weird it’s assuring to know what’s in it. So, yes, I’d eat anything that made the plate.

 

Real Life Chopped Champions? You And You And You

 

How often does life set a series of obstacles in front of where you want to go and what you want to do?

The correct answer is, “Every day.”

Not, “Every fucking day,” because that implies a certain attitude no one needs to hear.

‘Every fucking day’ is a rut, a bad habit, something to overcome before you overcome the real obstacles.

Focus on the problem, not the environment the problem is part of.

The cooks on TV never complain about the kitchen; a woodworker never blames their tools.

Don’t blame ‘every fucking day’ from the start.

Why not give it a chance to be a great day?

Like this.

Or this.

 

What’s In The Box

As humans we share similar traits: we wake up, we do things, we go to sleep.

The Beatles catalogued a few here:

 

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream

 

A dream is in the box, a ten thousand dollar prize dream.

Do you dream of ten grand while making dinner?

I’ll ask another way: Is doing your best important enough, or do you need to get paid?

Over the years I’ve learned that getting paid is different than spending.

Shocking, right?

If I have to pay for something that goes wrong, and I learned to never do it again, I call it tuition.

And why not, it’s educational.

If you pay for something you benefit from, you are a champion.

Being a champion is a good thing. It shows you can rise to the occasion.

The golden moment is yours.

You are good enough at the time, and time moves on.

 

Chopped Champions Life Lessons: Transform Ingredients

When life gives you lemons, as the saying goes, make lemonade.

Except that’s not good enough for Chopped.

Instead of lemonade you need to turn the lemons into a cake, a sauce, a pie, anything that shows lemon in a new light.

When life delivers the unexpected, then what?

You can choose your path, or your pathology.

For example, I had a painful hip.

Instead of giving in, giving up, I worked with it every day for years and years convincing anyone who asked that it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

I worked it at the gym, running the lap pool.

After I finally went in for a hip replacement, I asked my kids if they remembered me as being too crippled to do anything we did as a family.

They said no, but they could tell I struggled. How could they tell?

Because the chronic pain was intense, not just nagging.

Like a Chopped contestant I transformed the pain into motivation for losing weight, eating better, and paying better attention to others.

What I’m telling you is I compensated.

If I did good things for others my hip hurt less?

Hell no, this is BoomerPdx, not WooWooPdx. Come on.

It hurt like a bitch no matter what I did, but sometimes I didn’t think about it.

Like when I was helping others. It still hurt, but I was too occupied to notice.

That was my path, is my path. Mr. Helpful.

If I’d decided on pathology instead of path I would have taken a seat, started a schedule of oxy, and no one would have blinked.

Add another hundreds pounds, stack a few drug addictions, and I’d be set.

Eventually you could’ve stapled a bright red MAGA hat on my head and dropped me off at the insurrection and I’d have been fine.

Daved And Confused.

 

I Wouldn’t Have Felt A Thing

 

But feelings are funny.

They trickle down better than tax breaks for billionaires.

The fellas whomping and stomping on Jan6 were a recipe for disaster. Then they showed remorseful feelings at their sentencing.

One lady in an ankle bracelet posted a sad picture and explained what she would miss during her time in prison.

She was as sad as any sad picture I’ve ever seen. Just the notion of anyone going to prison scares me sad.

Man prison is full of guys out-doing each another, the same as guys anywhere.

Except they’re out-doing each other without the attention of women. What’s the point?

I’ve heard that straight guys do gay stuff behind bars, but live hetro when they get out.

Just guys being guys in a different culture?

The point is avoiding a facility where criminals cuddle.

 

If you watch Chopped then you know about rules and consequences.

Call it the Chopped Constitution:

 

The chefs must cook their dishes and complete four platings (three for the judges and one “beauty plate”) before time runs out. Once time has expired, the judges critique the dishes based on presentation, taste and creativity and select one chef to be “chopped” – eliminated from the competition with no winnings.

 

Chopped applied:

You must live your life with a conscious effort to contribute to the betterment of mankind.

Once you finish each project you will be judged and advance to the next piece of business.

Or you flounder around complaining about how unfairly you were judged, that you deserved to win, and how badly you want another chance since you would have won if not for the bad horrible awful judges.

Which one do you aspire to?