Cooking For The Constitutionally Inept
Notes from a much longer piece on advice for the black-thumbed frustrated cook. . . . . .
This morning I stood like a vigilant sentry next to the toaster oven, determined to enjoy that just-right warmth and crispness on the artisan everything bagel. Apparently, I was lost in thought a few moments too many and what I got was smoke and carbon — burnt past the point of enjoyment. I cut off the blackest edges and ate it anyways, a penance for proving the point. Heat is a mysterious power that can barely be controlled. This morning it took advantage of my lapse and scorched that bagel like a madman.
Consider your stove - you barely registered its presence within your home, it’s just this appliance-like thing that seems to be there all the time. It’s time to get up close and personal with this tool, because it is literally the field of play — it’s where almost everything goes down, it makes or breaks all of the time and effort and money sunk into the meal so far. The patterns of heat are everything.
Court it, coax it, goose it, dampen it — to produce a successful meal, one must become a master of the flame. Electric coils, smooth glass tops, living, jumping flames that ignite and sputter — they all demand your curiosity and reverence, or they will ruin everything. Sure, the ignorant can often manage a successful experience without so much as a nod to the destructive power of heat - on, off, done. But to learn how to cook, to turn that blackened thumb into something new, you must start with the heat.
Get to know your heat source. Develop a relationship with the burner you can trust — the one who gets what you are trying to do here, who understands and supports you. The one who will give you some slack while also doing exactly what you ask of it. The feeling of betrayal is real — you are genuinely trying so hard to get it right, and then fooomp — your shit is burnt and the smoke alarm is screaming.
Whether a stove is gas or electric, fancy pants big bucks insta-twee or free from the side of the road, all cooking stoves have issues and personalities. We have a name for one of the burners on our stove, fancy-ish glass top electric, and this burner is called The Rouge. It pays little mind to the dial it is attached to. It marches to its own drummer, pulsing heat waves in a pattern that only it can comprehend. I use it only when feeling cocky and wild, like rolling the dice at Vegas. Find your Rouge, and find your steady Eddie.
Stay with the stove. For anyone with cooking ability, this is understood — but for us, the inept, it bears mentioning. Do not step away from the thing being cooked. The exception here is a soup, but even then, be wary every time you are outside a ten-foot radius of the stovetop. Install a little buzzer in your mind to remind you to stay physically present and attentive, it gives a little pulse as your radius expands, reminding you that a ruined meal is only a few steps away.
Get right down to the basics and understand what the heat is doing — it is breaking the cell walls, it is transforming and recombining carbon-based life with a swirl of alchemy. The forces of heat are pre-digesting plants and animals so that our bodies can receive and use them.
Cows have seven stomachs and a distillery of acids because raw, cold grass takes an enormous amount of effort to break down into something usable. Birds have a craw filled with grit and pebbles to break down the raw grains and insects, they’ve built a second tooth-like chamber to masticate the food into something they can absorb. Humans have fire.
For the energy stored in plants and animals to be transferred into our own life-stream, it must first be transformed, broken, made available. This is what cooking is, it is holding the tension between powerful forces, allowing space for magic to occur between the textures and flavors commingling among the weakened cell walls. The pot and the skillet are the vessels of alchemy and the knobs of the stove and oven are your keys to the kingdom. Turn them with care.
