I’ve discovered I like to cook.
The execution leaves a bit to be desired.
I leave messes more complex than carbohydrates—I’d rather write about what I just cooked than clean up the wreckage. My salad dressing game is at the “mix all the oils and vinegars you can find and add lemon and garlic” stage. Peanut butter and dinosaur nuggets are menu staples. My Pyrex glassware never fits any of the available lids, making leftovers a burden.
But I do like cooking, from beginning to end.
There’s something meditative about it: getting out the cutting boards; chopping scallions and asparagus while sipping wine (not the cooking wine) and listening to the latest John Scalzi audiobook on my Bluetooth headband; smelling the sizzle of garlic and onion; and serving up a plate with enough élan that I’m willing to Instagram photos. By which I mean I like pretty much everything but the kitchen sink—because, again, cleaning is boring.
Oh, and cutting onions. That’s not much fun either.
There’s something about cooking that just feels tangibly adult. I mean, each step of the process seems so responsible it should probably file its own taxes:
- Selecting recipes from an analog cookbook
- Creating a checklist for shopping, to control spending and get that satisfaction of marking tasks complete
- Shopping for vegetables with exotic names like delicata squash
- Testing melons with a frown and a thump, rather than seeing if they veer left into the canned goods
- Cooking a meal with more than one dish, sometimes going as far as 2-3 dishes and an appetizer
Most importantly, it’s all about the organization: scheduling meals on a calendar; setting up a recurring task to clear out the fridge; checking the stock of spices, herbs, and cooking oils. After all, if you organize your pastime, you can fool anyone into taking you seriously. That’s why all my baseball cards are in binders (organized by team, then division, then league, obviously).
So, if cooking makes me an adult, here are a few lessons I’ve learned about life, with varying degrees of application outside the kitchen.
- Know your limits. When trying a new recipe, limit yourself to one entree (the protein) and one side. Otherwise, the meal prep time will balloon from the recipe’s estimated 50 minutes to two hours, 47 minutes.
- Avoid eggplant. It’s the vegetable of disappointed ambition, which is probably why it’s also the emoji of choice for clumsy suitors tilting at romantic windmills.
- Salmon is something of a cheat code. It’s very hard to mess it up so badly the flavor can’t save it. So let’s hope we can save the salmon runs.
- Basic web searches won’t give you existential truth. Google didn’t really understand the assignment when I searched “What vegetable is the most grown up?”
- Artificial Intelligence, however… ChatGPT did understand the assignment. And, begrudgingly, I have to agree. I’m sure there’s a lesson there somewhere. For one thing, ChatGPT understands a bit of irony. Now that’s scary.
- Moderation in all things. When it comes to cooking wine, pick an inexpensive label, and don’t buy the biggest bottle unless you’re going to go on a wine-cooking kick. Don’t buy the smallest bottle either, though. In fact, as with life, stick with moderation in all things.
- Clean as you go. Whether that means throwing the onion skin in the compost while you start to sauté the chicken or getting so aggressive about disposing of wrapping paper on Christmas morning that gift cards are at risk, it’s better to start early, start often.
- Take victories where you can get them. My ten year old announced a passion for Brussels sprouts, so they immediately earned a weekly slot in the calendar.
More lessons to come, unless I burn down the kitchen in the meantime. Metaphorically or literally. Either one would be disruptive.
Writing At 1 AM 