Last night I cooked dinner. The night before that I also cooked dinner. This is nothing remarkable for most people, and it shouldn’t be remarkable for me, except that the kitchen has long ceased to be my domain. I was never an exceptional cook, although I held my own cooking for myself during the years I lived in New York. Of course, in New York, you don’t really ever have to cook from scratch, and my meals were very often a matter of putting together the elements of the partially prepared food I had bought at Fairway or Zabar’s, with the occasional experiments in real cooking only when I had the time and patience (both, at the same time).
My husband is very much the cook in our family and I’ve become incredibly spoiled by his simple, yet tasty and imaginative day-in/day-out cooking. He effortlessly whips together a scrumptious meal in twenty minutes flat from what I thought were bare cupboards. When we were first together, I cooked some and he cooked some. Then he cooked more and I became the “salad person.” That designation eventually petered out too. Now I keep Andreas occupied while he cooks, and then he usually keeps Andreas occupied while I clean, which I AM rather good at and enjoy doing. However, with Dave out of town this week, I’m playing cook again.
So, last night as I traversed bewilderedly and repeatedly the length of our new kitchen in our new house where I am still trying to remember where I put everything, I realized that, well, maybe I can cook to at least an acceptable degree, I’m just very out of practice. My method right now is, shall we say, a bit like driving a bus. I use every pot and and every utensil. I start cooking in one pot and have to transfer to another. I do everything out of order so that one dish ends up overcooked, another ends up cold, and that last thing – I’m still waiting for it to finish. It eventually gets done and it’s edible. Actually Andreas gobbled it right up – a good sign coming from his incredibly refined palate (for a two-year-old) which, like mine, is spoiled by Dave’s cooking. So I did it, but it took double the time it should have and the kitchen was a disaster area. In a word, I am INEFFICIENT.
In cooking and in horn playing (and in anything else that takes effort to be good at) it is easy to slip into the mentality that the knowledge and direction given to us by teachers or mentors is what makes the difference. It occurred to me (as I was cleaning up the mess I made) that, no matter what you “know” and no matter who has given you input, it is the day-in/day-out practice and working-through of that knowledge that allows it to be usable and worthwhile. I watch Dave cook all the time and Food Network is one of the two channels we watch in those rare times that the TV is on, but when I make bacon three times a year and he makes it 362 days a year, his bacon will inevitably be the bacon you want to eat.
So, although teachers can make a profound difference and provide invaluable guidance, there is nothing they can say that replaces that daily work and experimentation. This is the completely in the hands of the student.
The English language only has one word for know, but I love that other languages have different words for the various shades of knowing. Knowing a fact is very different than incorporating it into your being and understanding what it is all about. That is the only kind of knowing that transforms. And it is the only kind of knowing that allows for a delicious meal that, not only tastes like home, but feels like home to make.
So, happy practicing and happy cooking (if that is on your agenda as it is on mine). I did play my horn today, but, I admit, we went out to eat tonight. Come home soon, Dave!
