Day 229: Spice Things Up

"Spice is a verb." 

- from the cookbook: Mourad: New Moroccan 

I love the above quote. Saying that "spice is a verb" in the confines of a cookbook is such a brilliant concept. It implies that one truly does something with the spices. That one takes action. "I'm going to spice this up," I can hear myself saying and, in fact, I probably have said something like that many times. And then done it. Spice can be used in other word forms as well. It can be an adjective: "Holy cow that salsa is spicy!" It can be used as a noun: "I love to use various spices when I cook Mexican food." But I especially like it used as a verb: "I'm gonna spice up this guacamole with a little jalapeño, cumin, and cilantro."

In case you couldn't tell, I like spice and I like Mexican food. And being from Texas, anything spicy and I go hand in hand. My family roots come from a line of cajun French folk and the gumbo, étouffée and boudin I was raised eating, definitely fall into the category of spicy. But spicing things up doesn't necessarily have only to do with food. Some times I like to spice things up by trying a new activity or class. Just do something completely different from my norm.

I guess what I really like about using spice as a verb is that it inherently implies something more colorful or more flavorful. Life deserves to be spiced up, mixed up and just generally enhanced. It can be as simple as wearing red shoes with an otherwise tame outfit or it can be as drastic as taking a circus performance class. Hmmmm. Maybe? In any case, go out and spice things up today.