I wish our pans were this new!
It’s been about two months since my cooking “experiment” began, and if I’d used that as a goal, I’d have managed a moderate success. What I wasn’t prepared for was to actually learn something more than cooking mechanics from the process. Cooking is life in its simplest form: order, chaos, alchemy, and human bonding, all set in a kitchen. Or, in short, cooking enhances life in unusual ways.
1. Cooking with your nearest and dearest deepens your relationship.
I’d always thought this was nonsense: maybe our bored cavemen ancestors used to bond over cooking, but that was only because there weren’t many intellectual possibilities to keep them better occupied.
When I first started the experiment, I’d intended to be the one who suffered, since I was the one who was pickiest and the larger source of the food problems we’d been having. Instead, two weeks into the process, my husband insisted on being a part of it.
“It’s not fair for you to do all the work,” he said. Awww!
I’m now the “executive chef,” and he’s the chopper, which works perfectly. While he chops and I sequence, prioritize and handle the stove-stuff, we talk about just about everything in under the sun. When we’re waiting for a piece of chicken to sear on one side, we hug and laugh. Kitchen time is actually almost fun!
2. Two sets of hands make grocery shopping easier.
This one actually surprised me. I’d always dreaded shopping with my husband, since he’s got a lot of the “explorer” in him. “What’s that?” he’d say, looking at the bottom shelf of what I consider an irrelevant aisle, while I’d want to scout ahead and get all of our items as fast as possible.
With a good, plentiful list, on the other hand, he gets to explore, and I get to chart the most efficient course through the store. He manages the cart, gives me a second set of sharper eyes on the items, and I don’t have to fumble with my list-and-cart-and-grocery klutziness.
3. You really do need good knives—or at least adequate knives.
I just picked up a new set after getting sick of dealing with my existing crap set not actually cutting what I tried to slice. Apparently, finger flesh penetration isn’t a reliable test for knife “goodness.” I’m not sure if my new set is actually good, but it’s definitely better, and cuts down on chopping time by a minute or two per item.
4. Cooking can enhance on-the-fly creativity, even if you’re totally clueless.
Or, maybe, especially if you’re clueless. Hate the smell of buttermilk? Half and half doesn’t reek and adds a similar heartiness. Can’t stand cilantro? In Indian-ish and Vietnamese-ish and Thai-ish dishes, a little mint adds a lot of fun. Don’t have enough cutting surfaces? A frying pan works just as well. Once you’ve gotten the knack of creative improvisation, you’ll find endless opportunities to use it when you’re not cooking.
5. Cooking brings out your hidden talents and enforces your strengths.
I never realized until I started cooking that I’m a decent delegator, a good prioritizer, and competent “scheduler.” When you’re juggling three different dishes from a dual-recipe deal, and you’re trying to coordinate both you and your husband’s activities, you need a solid sense of the flow of the activity. You need to be able to say, “Chop this first. Measure this next,” to both yourself and the person you’re cooking with after interpreting the sometimes cryptic recipe instructions. You need to create systems in the course of the process of the recipe, or to harden your logistical sense. In the process, you learn to appreciate those unexpressed aspects of your personality all the more.
6. There is value in stillness, in settling, in waiting.
Some things taste better the next day, after they’ve chilled and relaxed in the fridge.
Take, for example, some vegetarian enchiladas my husband and I made. We were both cursing and champing at the bit, hungry because the recipe was surprisingly time-consuming and a lot of hard work. Then we had to wait another twenty-five minutes as the enchiladas baked in the stove. And another five for them to sit and cool down. The tomato-cream sauce tasted decent the first day, but after a nice overnight wait, the leftovers tasted heavenly. The sauce and the filling, left to settle, had blended into a completely different whole. The epitome of enchilada-ness, if you will.
Usually, when I do anything, I aim to eliminate the stalling, the gridlock and the periods of idleness in the name of efficiency and progress. But sometimes, those moments are when magic and potentiality truly happen. In between writing periods, the stillness of meditation creates a vision, and the vision becomes a scene. A stray abandoned line of dialog becomes a character’s major turning point.
7. You can make almost anything if you have the right instructions.
That killer green curry you had last night at your favorite Thai restaurant was orgasmic, wasn’t it? You can make it! How about that chicken tikka masala that made you and your significant other drool? You can make that too! How about a bookcase? Quite possibly, so why not try?
After a few recipes, you gain a sense of what makes something taste decent. You’ve grokked the inner logic of cooking, and you’ve begun to make sense of its operating principles. By quickly skimming a recipe’s ingredients and instructions, you can begin figure out whether it’s worthwhile. This same skill help you extrapolate whether a crafting recipe is going to be a waste of time.
The Building Mentality
Perhaps the largest lesson I’ve learned is to appreciate the allure of the Building mentality. I’m talking about the urge many people have to make physical, tangible objects. That’s never been a huge personal priority: my models tend to be purely mental and internal. Crafting has been something I’ve done for very short spates of time, whenever a rare, random urge hits me.
There’s just something, though, about seeing your creation come to life after slicing and dicing and simmering and sautéing. And then eating it and not actually vomiting, though we did have a close call with some shrimp a couple of weeks ago. (Warning: always boil your “cooked” jumbo shrimp for a minute or two. Don’t trust the store!) You can actually point to something and say, “I made this!” You can’t do the same thing with Word document, even if said document is a novel and required a billion times more work.