Day 20: Saludos Amigos

   Saludos Amigos! Greetings, Friends! This song is the first of many songs that will be featured each Saturday. It is the opening number of the film of the same name. Its lyrics are that which are very uplifting and welcoming, a perfect start to any film. 

The Lyrics: 

Saludos Amigos

A fond greeting to you

A warm handshake or two 

Good friends always do

Saludos Amigos

A new day's waiting to start

You must meet it

Wake up and greet it 

With a gay song in your heart!

 As you can see, the lyrics also give great advice. Every day is a new day that should be started off on a happy note. Even if you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed, as humans sometimes do, you can still turn it around and make it the happiest day ever. It could be the radio playing your favorite song or you've found the one they're playing is a new favorite. It could be because you've made a new friend or an old friend greeted you like a new one. It could be that you found a penny and decided to pick it up or someone surprised you with a "Pay it forward" and bought your meal without you knowing. All it takes is one little act that can make it the best day ever! 

So Saludos, Amigos and Keep Cooking with Character!

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Day 19: And above all, one should never lose one's temper.-- The Narrator

"And above all, one should never lose one's temper."-- The Narrator, Saludos Amigos

I'm pretty sure one can guess to whom this one is directed to. Yep. Donald Duck. The Narrator tells this to Donald, who is about to lose his temper, because of how high he is up in the mountains surrounding Lake Titicaca, Argentina, where overexertion can cause some bad side effects. 

This is really sound advice for anyone who has to face anything challenging. Losing your temper can have disastrous results and cause you to struggle more than you should. Take Donald Duck for example. He always loses his temper and rarely gets what he wants. In the Lake Titicaca scene of Saludos Amigos where this quote takes place, he is riding a very stubborn llama. The child near him can get the llama to do what he wants because he treats him with kindness and respect with the help of the flute. After asking for a try, Donald, on the other hand, loses patience with him about halfway up the mountain and tries to use brute force to get the llama to do what he wants, which is to go farther up. Giving Donald a run for his money, the llama refuses to do what Donald wants, causing Donald much frustration because he's met his match. Had Donald listened to the child and treated the llama with the same kindness and respect and patience needed to climb so high, he would have gotten to the top and not bucked down the mountainside into the pottery maker's stand in the market. 

This advice also is good for those who cook. As strange as it may seem, the happier you are when you cook something, the better the food will be. The more bitter and frustrated you are, the more sour and bitter it will become. Try it sometime. Cook a meal when you're in a really good mood, then cook the same meal when you're in a sour frustrated mood and see the difference. Strange how it works but it works. 

I could go on about different ways to control your temper, but only you know what works best for you. It could be something as simple as breathing and staring off into space for a few minutes, meditating, removing yourself from the situation til you get calmed down. It could also be as complex as going to the gym and hitting a boxing dummy or maybe you even find cooking calms you down. Whatever it is it's up to you to choose to control your temper, no matter how hard it may seem, and keep it under control. Nothing good ever comes from a lost temper.

Until next time! Keep Cooking with Character!

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Day 18: There's always plenty of colour and excitement..-- Narrator

"There's always plenty of colour and excitement here on market day."-- Narrator

This quote can be found in the opening animated segment of the 1942 film Saludos Amigos. The Narrator helps set the mood as Donald Duck comes upon Lake Titicaca's marketplace where he meets some locals and a Llama that's just as stubborn as he is.

Market days, or days whenever you go grocery shopping,  always bring some sort of excitement  and lots of color. No matter where you get your food there is always going to be a lot of color. From the colors found in nature to those printed on labels, color is everywhere. Even the finished product of the foods we cook are full of color. Some subtle, others not so subtle.

So is excitement if you know how to look. Though a grocery store or marketplace may seem like the most unlikely of places to find some excitement, but it can be found. Excitement can come from finding your favorite drink as a kid that was no longer made at a local gas station (here's looking at you Surge) or watching a child help pick out just the right fruit or veggie for dinner that night. It can even come from something as simple as getting the ingredients for a new dish that you've been wanting to try or finding a random piece of kitchenware that your local grocery store stocks but no big box store carries. It can also come from the smells and sounds. Take Publix for example. For those unaware, it's a popular grocery store in the South. Every day they have someone at a tiny kitchen stand cooking one recipe from the Publix Aprons recipe line and do an announcement over the P.A. when it's ready to try. It's a great way for people to try new dishes and experience flavors they may not have thought to mix together. That's one sound I absolutely love to hear whenever I'm shopping there! Sometimes the smells bring back fond memories, such as going down the veggie aisle or fruit aisle and the scents bring back a memory of a simpler time like a fresh baked apple pie your grandma used to make way back before life got complicated with adult worries. Every so often you may find an old friend at the store the same time as you, adding to the excitement market day can bring.

Over time as we grow older, we lose the excitement we had as kids going with our parents to the store because it becomes a necessity or a chore. To regain that, we just have to take the time to stop and savor the moment of the sights, sounds and smells and allow ourselves to get excited over something seemingly trivial. 

So until next time, never lose sight of the excitement market day can bring and Keep Cooking With Character!

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