The Secret Works?

You know the book The Secret? Yeah, go ahead, roll your eyes. I've done that, lotsa times. All that self-help, positive-thinking, you-control-your-own-fate crap, right? Imagine you have a million dollars and soon it will come true! You know who all the examples are in the book? People who made a million dollars selling crappy self-help books like The Secret to suckers like you and me.

The basic premise: send The Universe the right messages and The Universe will deliver all you desire. There's a lot of crap about love and gratefulness and reinforcing it all with imagining you already have what you want.

Listen honey, if that theory worked than I'd have been Brad Pitt's lover years ago and I'd be in a bed made of money with that tall, blond, viking hunk from True Blood right now. Yet The Universe has failed to put any of that in my path. So zzrrrbbbttt! to The Universe, eh?

Or so I thought....

Living in Vienna doesn't present a whole lot of opportunities to eat Mexican. And my skills in the kitchen are such that making Mexican food from scratch, without the handy pre-made sauces, dips, salsas and flavor packets that abound in American grocery stores, is damn near impossible.

Finely chop some limited culinary skill, fold in a low sense of kitchen adventure then add a pinch of inherent laziness and what you have is a recipe for me NOT making Mexican without a Taco Aisle.

Besides - Taco Night is supposed to be a cheap, fun, easy dinner night. Like spaghetti night, it's meant to NOT tax my brain, my schedule or my mood. Guacamole doesn't come from an avocado, it comes from a jar. At least is does when I'm the cook.

And so, sadly, Mexican is off the menu for the time being. I was never a huge fan, so it took me a good few months to really miss it. But when I did I started discreetly checking recipes, and peering more closely at grocery store shelves. Alas, all this did was confirm my initial suspicion. Austria is simply too damned far from Mexico. And so I began lamenting the loss of nachos, enchiladas and tacos from my diet. Once you realize you can't have something you just want it all the more, and I felt deprived.

Suddenly every schnitzel on every menu was a slap in the face. Fifteen kinds of wursts and nothing to stuff a burrito with?!? Was The Universe deliberately withholding what I suddenly wanted most? Brad Pitt be damned, I wanted a TACO!

I was putting an awful lot of energy into wanting and missing Mexican food. I was talking about it to anyone that would listen to me and then...lo and behold...my little neighborhood market became the site for a miracle. A TACO SHELF! Just above the jars and jars of pickled everything, and below the cans of goulash soup, next to the display of magazines (not a one of which I can read.)

It was as if a little imaginary band of mariachi angels started playing as a heavenly light shone down on the newly installed Taco Shelf. I did a happy little jig, shouted Olé and put one of everything in my basket. Last week we had nachos, twice. This week it's chicken enchiladas.

Taco Shelf!! It's not the same as a big ol' American grocery store Mexican AISLE, but I am grateful for the gift, nonetheless.

So you know, The Secret....maybe I was wrong about you. I put my message out there and I got a Taco Shelf.

Muchas gracias, Universe, muchas gracias indeed.

-k.