Cooking food.

I've always been the type to cook my own food. Perhaps I get it from my parents who didn't enjoy eating out unless it was 99 cent day at Popeyes or dim sum. My mom's voice rings clear even when I'm thousands of miles away, "I can cook that at home, don't get that."

Needless to say, eating out is not my cup of tea. I am internally grumpy at small portions, I think it's stupid when a single dish cost more than a week's worth of groceries, and low and behold, if I can make that at home, I don't want to eat it.

Usually when I go out and eat - it's for the social aspect of hanging out with my friends which I love. It's a societal thing to eat out and to go out, but when the bill comes a little bit of me cries on the inside - I can't help it - a reaction that's a product of growing up relatively poor and in an extremely frugal household. I'm a lot better these days and I enjoy eating out but ultimately a home-cooked meal is priceless.

As of late, I've started to post things that I cook in a more social-media friendly manner with the hashtag #chefbutton (a play off my college radio dj name ms. button). One day I have a conversation with a really good friend of mine who I haven't chatted with for a little whiles she says,

So what have you been up to other than cooking?

Taken aback a bit, I laugh on the inside because of course all she knows that I do is cooking because that's all the pictures that I post. I also spoke to my cousin the other day,

You're cooking pretty complex foods.

And today it dawned on me that because of what I share on social media it's what people think of me currently. The thing is, I've always cooked my own meals for myself in this manner but now there is this attention to it that others recognize because I put it on social media. I'm really happy to share it with people, folks seem to love to see what I cook. Food gets the most likes on Facebook. So I wonder what else of me can I share with the world? I do have conflicts with it, but I also value the sharing aspect of it a lot and if I can share a piece of myself with the world than why not?