Editor’s Note: You know when you look up a recipe online and it comes with some preamble about how the blogger learned to cook the meal? You’re left scrolling through a never ending story when all you want are the ingredients and step-by-step instructions. This blogcat is somewhat like that, except there’s no recipe at the end.
It’s almost 6PM, on a weekday, and I’m tired from the day’s particulars. My girlfriend, Beth Anne, arrived home a little bit ago. She’s tired too, understandably. Her workday is longer than mine, and undeniably more demanding. Adding to, and catalyzing, our collective fatigue is the growing hunger rumbling around our guts. Quick jabs from within the abdomen, like a little boxer trying to punch their way up into the esophageal passage. In this moment I’m only thinking about the best way to get food in my belly. An internal debate begins, should we order food or cook for ourselves?
There was a time in my life when cooking for myself meant measuring out 2 cups of water, ripping open a powdered cheese packet, and combining it in a bowl with some dehydrated Kraft macaroni. I, like many young men, set upon the world without much skill or ability in the kitchen. As a boy I was spoiled with well-cooked meals, of which I played little-to-no part in preparing. My mom is a professionally trained pastry chef and spent many years working in restaurant kitchens before I was even a thought in her mind. Her proficiency in the kitchen, coupled with my family’s Jewish and Filipino heritage, made food the focal point of every gathering. Wondrous aromas would fill our house in the days leading up to holidays, birthdays, and family events. A barrage of olfactory missiles launched from homemade soup stock simmering on the stovetop, beef slowly braising or roasting in the oven, and sweet dough rising for future breads and cakes. It was a welcome onslaught of smells, but I had no idea the sort of effort it took to cook these meals.
When I was in high school my mom showed me how to scramble an egg, the way my grandfather taught her, the right way. Whisking with a fork to create the perfect amount of air bubbles for a fluffy scramble. Folding the egg while tilting the pan, rather than merely stirring the egg as it cooked. A task I previously thought so simple was actually quite artful. To this day, I cannot scramble an egg without thinking back to that first tutorial. It wasn’t long after that I learned the secret to a perfect grilled cheese sandwich (I’m not at liberty to divulge this info. Secrecy is a virtue). Right after college I was elevated out of the minor leagues when my mom clued me in on how to properly stir-fry in a wok.
Within each of these cooking experiences there also existed a bevy of foundational kitchen knowledge beyond the dish-specific lessons. I soaked up what I could, still without much of an idea about how cooking would play a role in my life. I had no family to cook meals for. I eventually moved into a house with two other roommates, and our diets largely consisted of hoagies, pizza, and most any other take-out. It took a few years before I realized how cooking could really impact my life.
Now it’s closer to 6:30PM. A few ideas are tossed about. We could order from our favorite dim sum place, and pick it up a few blocks away. There’s that frozen pizza, just waiting to get thrown in the oven. Or, we could use the assorted veggies from our weekly CSA to make something worthwhile and delicious for ourselves. Full disclosure, this is a fabricated account. There are times (many, many times) when we absolutely order the dim sum. There are also occasions when we fire up the oven and let that frozen pizza burn the roofs of our mouths. But, the more memorable and meaningful nights are when we get to cooking, without much of a plan or forethought.
They say it’s bad to grocery shop when you’re hungry. You end up buying things you don’t need. This I know to be true. Conversely, there’s an almost magical quality to cooking while hungry. From the smell of garlic cloves getting crushed to the sizzle of sautéing onions, or the refreshing crunch of fresh chopped greens. Even pouring olive oil in a warming pan can be quite mesmerizing. Cooking is actually a major distraction from hunger, and any other woes of the day. As Beth Anne and I begin working in the kitchen we commiserate about all that was bad and rejoice in all that was good in each other’s day. Our evening turns into a plotline with clear ascending action as the meal becomes more and more realized with every step of the recipe. After a long day at our respective jobs, this is finally our time and we use it to nourish our bodies as well as our souls.
Eventually, we are fully present and immersed in our cooking. Chop. Chop. Chop. The rhythm of knife against cutting board acts as a repetitive mantra. We are focused on our hands at work. Every breath takes in new scents. The stove and oven warm the air. The entire process is a sort of meditative practice in emptying the brain of unwanted noise. Ultimately, all our prepping and cooking leads to a final hurrah, the meal itself. We sit with plates in front of us, full of our own makings. The time it took to make this meal pales in comparison to how good it feels to eat it. We are grateful, we are no longer hungry. We are at peace.
There’s no doubt in my mind that food tastes better when you cook it yourself. It’s an act of creation, a simultaneously artistic expression and necessary act. If you want to live, you must eat. If you want to eat, you must cook. Don’t get me wrong, I love the chance to go out, pick up some take-out, our heat up some frozen dinners. But there really is nothing like sitting down to a meal you prepared yourself, and it’s even better to share that experience with someone else. We all deserve to know where the food we eat comes from, so why not have it come from ourselves?