Cooking With No Skill, Yet So Much Confidence
My love of cooking was self taught and late learned, after many years of smugly thinking I knew what I was doing.
I didn’t learn to cook from my mother. I had no interest in learning, and she had no interest in teaching me. Or, maybe, she had little to teach. To my childlike palette, she seemed like an exquisite cook. I honestly thought my mom’s food was restaurant-ready. Until I realized that she basically didn’t cook at all. Cakes and brownies for birthday parties were souped-up box mixes (just add yogurt), with that incredible Betty Crocker frosting (some maple syrup or cream cheese whipped into it). Most dinners were selected from the best Québecois frozen entrées (duck quiche, veal meatballs) that Costco had to offer.
Looking back, I could have pieced together how little cooking she was doing. There were signs. We only had glass cutting boards. My mom diced onions with serrated knives, saying that no other knives stay sharp enough. She rinsed pasta noodles. While I was incredibly well fed, I left my childhood home knowing only how to slice Pillsbury cookies and puncture plastic film before microwaving.
I truly did not know how to cook until late in my twenties, though I thought I was quite good at it for a decade prior. It must have felt intuitive, because any acknowledgement of the science of heat transfer or flavor balance did not occur to me until much later. I cooked in scratched nonstick pans, wondering why my food was flecked with black pepper I hadn’t added. My garlic would always, always burn, which I chalked up to the inalterable power of every stove in every apartment I have ever lived. If a pan got too hot, I would throw cold water into it, regardless of its contents. Once, I proudly fed some very waterlogged, skin-on chicken thighs to a chef friend. First, I browned the skin beautifully in a pan until it was crisp and flaky. Then, I fully submerged the chicken thigh in broth and boiled it (what is a simmer?) to finish cooking.
In college, I rolled my eyes at my lazy, every-night-is-pizza-night housemates. Then, I proceeded to cut open a bag of frozen pasta and vegetables, add it to a pan with jarred vodka sauce. And honestly, probably a glug of actually vodka, which I didn’t realize I needed to cook off before eating. Bone-apple-teeth, friends.
All the while, I embarked on a professional career in the food industry when I was twenty-two. It turns out that making roux isn’t a prerequisite to serving in New York restaurants, managing a commissary in Chicago, or drawing kitchen layouts in San Francisco. While it seemed to me that being a skillful eater translated to being an adept chef, it turns out that’s a spurious correlation.
I truly do not think I was being lazy. I thought I was nailing this cooking thing. You’re looking at a gal who bought a giant, industrial juicer, only to put whole oranges with the peel into it, and wonder why it never tasted sweet like Tropicana. I juiced a pickle once.
I would pay money to go back and taste those dishes. Did I, at least, season them well? Did I somehow, by osmosis, learn my mom’s secret of doing absolutely nothing properly, but making it taste good in the end? Dear God I hope so. I hosted so many dinner parties.
Learning to cook — really, finally learning to cook — in my late twenties was the ultimate humbling experience. For much of my life, I liked being good at things on the first try. When new things were not quick or intuitive, I tended to avoid trying them a second time. I have never favored activities that require steadiness and patience.
My life motto might as well be “let’s wing it.” Unfortunately, for me, cooking could not be winged.
In my kitchen, a cycle emerged where I would try to cook things and spectacularly fail them. And because I don’t make buttermilk biscuits every damn day, I would wait weeks, or months, or years to give it another try. These small, quotidian flops cut deeper than they should have. I felt so much shame for something as simple as overcooked salmon. But I desperately wanted to be good at cooking, and I hated that I wasn’t. It felt childishly unfair that I couldn’t apply my time-tested “fake it until you make it” methodology to cooking.
Actually learning to cook was a lesson in perseverance and humility, and it was unpleasant. When things didn’t go my way, I wished I had a freezer full of Quebec Costco’s finest duck quiche, ready for the toaster oven, or however you cook that. I’ve already thrown out the instructions.
When I met my partner, we quickly learned that our cooking styles were opposites. To be fair, he mostly ate burritos and cheeseburgers at the time. But when he did cook, he did everything impeccably right. He did not stir his eggs with a metal fork in a nonstick skillet; he used a spatula. He knew what deglazing was for, and that it was not an emergency splash of Coors Light over burning onions. He patted his meat dry before putting it in the perfectly seasoned cast iron. He made goddamn bouquets garnis.
On an early date, we decided to make lasagna. For me, lasagna was a simple noodle, red sauce, cheese exercise — thirty minutes tops. So I made plans with friends for after dinner. Three hours later, we finally ate. I was introduced to béchamel, despite only having experience with its cousins Alfredo and mayo. My mom’s lasagnas growing up, shockingly, omitted this ingredient, even though Knorr makes a rousing powdered version. Even lasagna can surprise you.
Since my béchamel enlightenment, I must say, I have blossomed. I get excited to attempt new, challenging dishes and have nearly gained the emotional maturity it takes to fail them. For example, I have made Montreal-style bagels twice, and only cried once. If I had attempted this five years ago, I’m sure I would have brought my recklessly over-proofed, undercooked bagels to a potluck, none the wiser. It’s amazing what patience and perseverance can do to a yeasted dough.
Learning to cook, for me, feels like my therapist pointing out bad habits that I need to dig into, when I’d prefer to douse them in hot sauce and lime yogurt. It has been a come-to-Jesus with myself, to confront my persistent behaviors of impatience, avoidance, and cutting corners, both in the kitchen and out. As it turns out, if you don’t fix the burnt food, you have to sit there and eat it, a victim of your own unwillingness to do better. Even worse, if you keep serving the same gross, gummy, chicken to your friends, you are pretty much telling them they are not worth you taking the time to learn to crisp the skin.
Is repeating a recipe until you get it right the antidote to fear of failure? Is taking the time to complete every step, without taking shortcuts, a way of showing people you care about them? Is cleaning up as you go a version of setting up future you for success? Either way, it is gratifying to actually enjoy making food. It is nice to sit down for a meal without being drenched in sweat from stress and troubleshooting. My body thanks me for ingesting fewer carcinogens, because I don’t burn half of what I cook. Is this self-care?
Not too long ago, I mustered the courage to make a notoriously difficult dish — the french omelette. I stirred, jiggled and coaxed it down to the edge of the pan before acrobatically flipping in onto a plate. I cursed out the ghost of Julia Child when my first-ever french omelette did not emerge a smooth yellow cylinder.
My second try was perfect. It was a lifetime achievement: putting in the time and effort required for my second french omelet to be perfectly folded, with a soft, ribbony center. Twenty-two year old me would have been proud. Or maybe she wouldn’t have. Why would you make a french omelet when you can microwave eggs in a plastic tray?
Even if it is mostly within the walls of my kitchen, I have laid the groundwork to see an idea through to dinner-party-quality completion. If it doesn’t work, I buy more eggs and try again. Some people say that love is the secret ingredient to a delicious dish. For me, that ingredient is a liberal sprinkling of untangled personal insecurities.