07_18_2018

Cooking: An Artful Form of Work

Cooking: An Artful Form of Work

             For those of you who read my most recent Blog, Celebrating Your Life Work, you may remember that I indicated that I would be exploring the many different types of Work that we perform in our lives.  So one of the forms of Work identified in the quote from Thomas Moore (see most recent Blog) makes reference to what we do to take care of our health and our bodies.  There’s much to explore in this broad category of work, but today I’m focusing on food; what we take into our bodies has an enormous impact on our bodies and on our health.

                So cooking – what we prepare to eat – offers us an opportunity to do good things for ourselves and others.  Let’s just explore the concept of cooking a bit before we take a deeper look at it as a form of work.

                Let me begin by saying that I have always enjoyed working with food.  I have given thought to what led me down this path, but there are only a few indicators that I can identify as contributing to my predisposition to enjoy working with food.  Growing up in the Midwest, I had an opportunity to join a 4-H Club.  I’m not sure of the origins of 4-H Clubs, but I think they were associated with Departments of Agriculture located within a State’s counties.  The Mission of these government departments included providing assistance to farmers in the growing of food –including livestock and crops – as well as providing assistance in the preparation of food.  Individual clubs were provided with materials that helped  us learn to cook.

                Fortunately, my Club started with a series of workbooks that focused on learning How to Bake.  No one in my family baked, so I found it exciting to learn how to make cakes and pies as a starting point.  Club members would take turns meeting at one another’s house, and the leader would demonstrate for us how to walk through a recipe.  Then we had to go home and make the recipe on our own, and report back how things turned out.

                I think the process of creating something from scratch really appealed to me.  Because the instructions were so detailed, and the leaders’ approach emphasized  the importance of following the instructions, it was easy to understand what one had to do for the recipe to work.  I know it may sound silly now, but I loved the rituals of organizing all of the ingredients first, then measuring everything out in the correct sequence, mixing it together, preparing the baking pans, and putting the final product in the oven, and POOF, you would end  up with a cake.  Learning how to make a buttercream frosting was fairly easy, and there was always enough left for tasting.  Yummy!

                To be honest, I’m not so sure I would have been so excited about the process if we had started with learning how to cook spinach.  There’s an extra bonus I think in learning how to make something sweet.  We did go on to learn how to make simple meals, like meat loaf, mashed potatoes, etc. What I learned from participating in 4-H were the basics of working in a kitchen.  I learned how to read a recipe, how to measure, and the importance of following a recipe precisely – especially when baking, and all of that information  gave me the confidence and know how to start learning more on my own.

                I don’t think of myself as a great chef at this point, but I’ll share that people tell me that I’m a very good cook.  I’ll take that compliment, but the truth of the matter is that you become a better cook through practice.  I love trying new recipes, and when I invite people over for dinner, I generally cook some  recipes that I have prepared before so I have some idea of what’s involved.  I also know where I might want to make adjustments to the recipe in order for the result to meet my culinary expectations – more enhanced taste, a different texture, etc.  In addition to the tried and true, I ALWAYS add in a new recipe, not for my guests per se, but to give myself the pleasure of experimenting with something new.

                So, just to keep this real, sometimes my experimentations don’t work as well as I would have hoped.  Generally they are passable, but the flavors I have anticipated coming through are too muted, or the texture is off, etc.  In my earlier days of cooking, I had more definable mishaps.  The first time I made a pie from scratch, it took me almost all day.  I couldn’t get the crust right, and it kept sticking to the rolling pin as I tried to roll it out.  At one point, I became so exasperated I threw the #!..# crust  against the kitchen wall.  But I got better.  I’ve learned through practice to be more cognizant of how much time I have for preparation, and to rethink my planned menu to be more in line with the time and energy I have to devote to preparing the meal.

                When I send out an email to friends inviting them to a dinner gathering, I get an almost immediate reply of “yes.”  I mentioned this to one of my friends who said, “Of course.  Nobody cooks any more so it’s a special treat if someone is making dinner for you.”

                I never really gave much thought to how much people might enjoy having a home-cooked meal until my friend shared her observation.  Once I looked at cooking for others as a form of caring and as a gift, I could more easily combine the pleasure I get from the creative aspects of cooking with the idea that I am also doing something kind for others. 

                Having friends over for dinner isn’t just about the food; it is also about the opportunity to spend time together and share what is going on in our lives.  As I learn to better monitor what I am able to give to the experience in terms of time and effort as I have learned that I too want to be able to enjoy the experience, I now see cooking as part of my work.

                I enjoy cooking for myself as well.  I have managed to find a way to organize recipes that I really enjoy in a way that I can access them when I want to, but I continue to seek out new recipes and experiment.  Being a vegetarian, and given that more and more people are choosing healthier forms of eating, there are tons of magazines now that feature new ways of combining foods.  I frequently shop at Whole Foods, and they carry special editions of America’s Test Kitchen. Typically each of these editions has a specific focus; e.g., salads for summer; best desserts of the year; etc.  Recently I purchased one focused on The Best Mediterranean Diet Recipes.  As a vegetarian, this particular issue contained some real delicious keepers that were fairly easy to make and each lasted for several days.  One of my favorites was the Artichoke, Bell Pepper, and Chickpea Tagine (P.55.)  One of the things to consider when cooking is the amount of leftovers.  Leftovers give you a couple of days out of the kitchen so that cooking can remain an interest and creative outlet instead of being viewed as a chore.

                I get it that not everyone likes to cook, especially if you’ve been responsible for cooking every  day for partners and children.  On the other hand, if you want to explore new recipes  and explore cooking, I suggest picking up a magazine that interests you at the grocery store.  Typically you can get a decent magazine for under $10.00, or if you’re someplace that has cooking magazines in the lobby for while you’re waiting, use your cellphone to take a picture of a recipe you’d like to try.

So while cooking may not be your thing, find something else in your life that you are more than willing to put in the time and effort in pursuing that interest.  Can you begin to think of this endeavor as part of your Work? I find by raising my awareness to include thinking of what I enjoy doing as part of my Work, I actually reframe and elevate the way that I look at that experience while I’m doing it. In short, I get even more pleasure from the experience, and in the case of cooking, I spend time thinking about and appreciating those that I am preparing a meal for.

 Bon Appetite!