Thursday, January 13, 2011

Complete control

"I think it's done."
"How long is it supposed to cook?"
"I dunno, a couple of minutes. I've never done this before."
"I have to say, I'm very nervous with the whole not using a recipe thing."
"I know and I don't care."

Some friends and I have been getting together the last couple of years for a nice dinner at the start of the New Year. We try to vary the guests, but usually the same group shows up. I am able to be in the kitchen with a good friend, one of my closest friends really. The problem is that unless I'm baking (and we all know how that goes with me) I don't really stick to recipes. I don't like them. It's like someone else, along with the millions of other things in our lives, telling me exactly what to do. It's the same reason I hate flying. I am not in complete control. And if you cannot be in complete control in your kitchen where else can you be.

This got me thinking, though. Am I just really selfish and void of compromise, or is this a good thing... not to stick to recipes all the time, I mean. GRANTED I occasionally use them for cooking times and basic starts, but once I get going am I, under this certain umbrella, doing myself a disservice??? I mean, it means I know what I'm doing, right? Sometimes. And if I fail, I fail...or the dish just comes out wrong, and is that really so bad? Is it bad? I mean, Julia Child said never to apologize.

I think I made my friend particularly distressed that night. He is a by-the-book kind of guy. Once, I was told, he cooked scallops all day (in total he said round 25 scallops) just to get the perfect scallop. I admire this. And I love him dearly. Though now he doesn't want to eat scallops. Well, I guess if I had to eat 25 scallops in a day I'd never want to see one on my fork again.

1 comment:

  1. I've always considered cooking without a recipe to be a great skill. It just means you know what you're doing!

    ReplyDelete

Pavarotti on food...

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. ~Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story