Boxes and Babushkas

I am not sure why this is but people always want to put me in a box (please see my thoughts on boxes) and get challenged when they can't. Seriously, aren't we all this complex?  I guess not.

I was creating a snack like dinner with a friend and with a confused look he said, "I don't know... I just thought you would cook something fancier."  The other day a colleague said, "Sometimes I am surprised at what comes out of your mouth... you look like such as fashionista but you are really intelligient."  Guess what folks, I am all those things! 

Last week I was described as a Russian Babushka doll: a set of hollow wooden figures, each of which splits in half to contain the next smallest figure, down to the smallest.  The outside doll being fashion girl, followed by intellegient girl, followed by confident girl, then funny girl and finally the sensitive/shy girl.  Since this was the funniest description I had heard since 1984, I was in tears.  It is true.  I think people probably get most confused by dolls one and two and then finally when they discover five they are stumped.

My reflection of all this self-reflection lead me right back to the kitchen to the Onion Theory.  Once upon a time in 1996, Betty Kennan taught us the Onion theory in an interpersonal communication course.  We are a collective of many layers that can only be peeled one at a time.  When you finally get to the last layer you know that you have the complete trust of the individual. 

So, in food terms, no matter how you peel me, slice me, saulte me I make your dish a some-what spicy, certainly more interesting and a little more delicious.

You can not put me in a box, friends, but maybe you can put me in a babushka.