This post appears in the What Chocolate Treats Are You Making This Easter? challenge.

I am writing to announce that I was NOT nominated for any awards today. In fact, I was not nominated for any awards, nor was I signed for a cookbook deal today. There is no award announcement, no cookbook, no upcoming TV show where I will be featured on, no contests that I won, no publication that is clamoring for me to write for them, no conference that I will be presenting at*, my current google analytics seem to show that I’m getting less traffic than usual, and my photos were rejected yet again by Tastegawker (I’ve decided to combined both Tastespotting and Foodgawker into one word, because I’m so lazy that typing out two words is too much effort for me). So, instead of wallowing in my self-pity, I baked a chocolate cake. A deep, dark, rich, dare I say it because many of my friends hate the word, but I will anyway, ridiculously moist Chocolate Cake.

I am not normally a jealous person. At least that is what I tell myself. Not. Jealous. But sometimes, just sometimes, I look at someone else’s success, and I think to myself “why them and not me?” If that isn’t jealously I’m not sure what is. It’s an ugly thought and one that sits rather uncomfortably in my psyche and I often think I should rise above it. I tell myself “Yes, yes, they completely deserve the successful, and my time will come.” and then I realized that I should be honest with myself. I really hope something terrible will happen to that successful person. I secretly hope that the person will slowly by surely gain 20 lbs from all the celebratory festivities they are having for landing that book deal (or more likely from eating all the food that they have made from testing recipes for their soon-to-be best selling cookbook). Or if it’s a male that I am jealous of, I think to myself “I bet you anything he has a really small penis.” Yes, it’s not a pretty thought, and in many ways more shallow that I want to admit but I can’t help myself.

This line of thinking all came about when I was reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. You all are probably familiar with the book, as it’s been around for about twenty years, but even though I’ve known about it forever, I’ve never gotten around to reading it (which is ridiculous, I know, but let’s not go into that). While shopping some time ago with my partner AJ, at one of my favorite used bookstores, surrounded by the creaking of the uneven floor panels and the mild mustiness of used books, I realized it was time for me to buy and read Bird by Bird. So I ran to the shelf, thumbed through the fifteen used copies they had, settled on a hardback edition and purchased it. It then sat on my bookshelf for about six months.

But then, recently, I came down with a sinus infection. It knocked me out and put me out of commission, like so many of my sinus infections do. Yes, I know, the Neti Pot does wonders for this sort of thing, but this sinus infection was beyond the Neti Pot. No industrial strength hose of salty water could wash out these clogged pipes and sinus cavities in my head. I was waylaid, trapped in my bed, for days on end and though I often reach for cookbooks to read when I have nothing better to do, my appetite was nonexistent. One more gorgeous, lush, slightly over-exposed Donna Hayes inspired photo of Jerusalem artichoke soup topped with sautéed scallops, truffle oil and microgreens (seriously what is everyone’s obsession with microgreens?) and I was ready to toss all my cookbooks into the landfill recycle bin compost heap. This is San Francisco, cookbooks HAVE to be compostable right? Thankfully I spotted Bird by Bird on my shelf.

Anne Lamott has this way of writing that makes me blush with recognition. She says the things that I am thinking, often more bluntly but always a sense of self-deprecating humor that rings true. Bird by Bird is no exception. Her chapter on jealousy is startling because as I read it I felt exactly as she did, wanting to be happy for those people that are successful, but all the while distraught at not being more successful myself. Success is a drug, one of which that makes you wish for more if you taste a bit of it. Having been nominated once for an award, means you expect to be nominated again. When it doesn’t happen, you feel like a failure, even though it just means that perhaps it is time for someone else to shine. If you’ve never been nominated, then perhaps your time has yet to come. Or not. Not every writer gets published in the New Yorker and not ever actor wins an Academy Award, nor do all writers or actors deserve it. We all struggle and win and lose daily, and sometimes it’s the small daily victories that are much more of a big win than any accolades given to us by an outside person or panel. I try to keep that in mind as I got up to do the dishes that had piled up while I was sick in bed.

In the end, I look at some of the people I am jealous of, and I begrudgingly say that most of them deserve it. Not everyone, mind you, as there are those people that I am utterly confused by their success, but most of them really do deserve it. Some got there by way of luck or were early adopters, blogging before everyone else thereby getting a jump start on those that came later, but some – dare I say most – work their butts off to get where they are. Those people, (perhaps more than I am probably willing to admit) deserve their success because they are really incredibly talented. They have more talent in their pinky than I have in my entire body. They fart creativity and it drives me crazy that I struggle along, trying to figure things, pretending to be creative on this blog, when clearly I am a sham, a poorly trained actor on a stage built by WordPress, Photoshop and Illustrator.

But then I realize that you don’t see that. You don’t see my struggle, the dirty dishes, the piles of broken bundt cakes and sticky gooey not-so-delicious rubbery fillings (take note, arrowroot and cornstarch are NOT always equal substitutions – trust me on this one). I so rarely talk about the failures on this blog, because who wants to see those? Those aren’t the photos that people pin on pinterest. We reward the perfect all the while complain that the standards set are so high that no one can really attain them. But if I struggle along with my failures, what makes me so sure that I am alone with it? Those “successful” people out there have their own problems, whether it’s fighting a cold, running late as they pick up their kid from the daycare or trying to test their recipes for the sixth time for the cookbook that is due in a week and the recipe just. won’t. work. And who knows, there might be people out there that are jealous of me too. Me and my clogged sinuses and dirty dishes and lack of awards. Oh to be jealous worthy.

In the end I resign myself to my jealous, knowing it is fleeting. I’m actually NOT a jealous person, and any form of jealously that flairs up is usually a result of external circumstances. A bad hair day, coupled with a failed bid on a photo or design project leads to me putting on a shirt that makes me looks fatter than my usual gay fat and then I get an email telling me that I didn’t win a contest that I forgot I had entered in the first place. It all adds up. But, like most things, the next day is a little bit better. New opportunities arise, my hair seems to be cooperating again, and I decide to donate that shirt to the local goodwill, because really, horizontal stripes never looked good on me anyway, I’m more of an argyle guy. I realize that though I wish I could magically create fabulous stunning dishes in the kitchen all the times, the things that I do successfully achieve in the oven usually aren’t half bad. Maybe some of them are pretty good. And though it’s one of those things that I often times say to people, I really do believe it: when someone else in the food blogging world finds success, it opens doors for other food bloggers as well. It shows the world that there is legitimacy in what food bloggers do. At least that’s what I tell myself. If that doesn’t help me feel better, well, I just serve myself up another large slice of chocolate cake and find a shirt with vertical stripes.

[*Editor’s note: I wrote this post nearly a year ago, but for various reasons, never published it. After presenting at the Roger Smith cookbook conference with Diana Kuan, author of fabulous The Chinese Take Out Cookbook, I was telling her about this unpublished piece and she encouraged me to hit the publish button. Even though some things have changed since I wrote the piece, including the fact that I have talked and will be talking in a number of conferences in 2013 (including the Roger Smith Cookbook Conference, the annual IACP conference and BlogHer Food 2013), I thought it an appropriate piece to publish for my blog 3 year anniversary. I hope you all take it with a grain of (kosher, sea or maldon) salt. Thank you all for indulging in my ramblings for the past three years.]

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