Perfectionism, or the death of cooking
For far too long, (at least a couple of decades), I relied inordinately and in a draconian fashion on recipes. I was a slave to the recipe. I thought if I didn’t have the exact ingredient called for, I had to either go get it or abandon the attempt entirely. I had no idea how — or lacked the confidence — to simply substitute with what I had on hand. I lacked the knowledge, or thought I did, of how basic food groups combine to create a dish.
The real problem, however, was perfectionism. I was a fearful cook. It was a high-anxiety endeavor because the results had to be perfect. If the final product wasn’t perfect (or nearly), it crushed me to the core. And since I wanted to avoid at all costs that soul-sucking feeling of having failed, all cooking attempts were high, high stakes. The stakes couldn’t have been higher.
Not only was I ridiculously perfectionistic, however. I also tended to set myself up poorly. I’d dawdle, start too late. Rather than reading the recipe through and buying the ingredients a day or two ahead of time, I’d wait until the last minute. Rather than preparing anything that could be made or done ahead, I’d plunge in at the last minute, spinning like a dervish, but with a crazed rather than soulful expression.
I made everyone around me suffer. One night, I invited several families on the street over for a bouillabaisse dinner. I had never made bouillabaisse before. I started too late and was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. The dish took much longer than I expected. Families with young children were over. Parents were peeking into the kitchen, at first with delight and curiosity, then with mounting concern. Then, not at all.
I could feel the tenor in the house change as the time for appetizers passed, the time for dinner passed, conversation flagged. People were hungry. Kids were increasingly cranky. Now, not only did I have to hurry-hurry up the dinner, but I also had to provide something beyond the handful of nuts or whatever was out there to tide people over. I forget what I whipped up to do that, but I did something. I was exhausted, frantic, and embarrassed.
The fact is, I did finally get the bouillabaisse on the table, and it was… delicious. I dare say, it was “perfect.” If it could have been better, I don’t know how. The Pernod — wow. What a finishing touch. But, the cost of that perfection was high.
In the movie The Hours, Julianne Moore plays a perfectionistic mother who attempts to make a birthday cake for her husband. Her young son is helping. As they work together, you can feel her tension and discomfort mount to extreme proportions. She is miserable. The child is confused. Nothing goes right. She is appalled at herself and her efforts. She tries to let the child help, but of course he “ruins” the cake (not). She snaps at the child. She is dissolving, self-immolating before our very eyes. Incredibly, she winds up throwing away the first birthday cake and starting all over again.
Of course, if you’ve seen the movie or read the book, you know that a short while later this mother abandons her children, for good.
That scene stayed with me. It’s excruciatingly painful. I saw myself in it. I also saw my mother.
Once, I asked my ex, my children’s father, to set some water on the stove for oatmeal. I was busy and out of the room. When I returned, I asked him if he had measured the water. He said he did. I took the pot from the stove and measured it again.
Another time, I asked him to set the table. He actually did it. (He didn’t do a lot of housework, and he did less and less by the year, and who can blame him.) I bustled into the room, took one look at the table, and said, “No.” No, that’s not right. No, that’s not what I meant. No, not that table cloth. No, not those plates. No. Just.. no. (The subtext was, “Can’t you do anything right?”)
I attacked him with the same shower of acid with which I attacked myself, and with which my mother attacked me. Would anything have been good enough for me? For her?
I sound like a bitch, of course, and I’m sure I was. But what most people don’t understand (and why should they? it’s asking a lot) is that the person acting like this is suffering from anxiety and self-castigation of a debilitating pitch. It’s an anxiety that sears and colors and pollutes everything it touches, and when its running amok, the Self inside just shrivels under the attack. It’s my mother’s voice, and although I’ve spent years in therapy trying to eradicate it, it remains.
I am better though, and more so every year.
A few years ago, I made a fantastic, layered, complicated, beautiful, nuanced Persian dish. I came out perfectly the first time I made it. The second time I made it for my Persian boyfriend, and it didn’t go so well. He came over, and nothing was going right. I was frantic, rushing, skipping steps, and when I pulled the final product from the oven, it was nowhere near what the first attempt had been. I could tell from his face that he saw all. He saw my anxiety, he saw it was way too important to me, and he saw the dish was only so-so.
But instead of crumbling, I held it together. I wasn’t pleased, but I didn’t go dark. I didn’t dissolve into a little pile of powder as I’ve been known to do on occasion. That alone constituted a victory. In fact, I even felt a little haughty when I noticed his cool appraisal. He should have thanked me for making his country-dish, no matter how bad it was. So there.
That constitutes a shift and proves I’m getting better.
But it was Tamar Adler’s book The Everlasting Meal that really set me free in the kitchen. Maybe I was poised and ready. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but I think Adler provided a powerful nudge that changed everything about the way I cook. Practically overnight, I went from someone who always consulted a recipe to someone who rarely did. And when I did that, I discovered I knew a lot more about cooking basics than I thought.
Tamar’s refreshing approach is in part about conservation. That resonated for me. She saves everything — bibs and bobs and carrot tops — plowing everything into the next meal. She takes a supremely simple approach. Her recipes are mainly suggestions. She tells you ways you can accomplish them… or not. She teaches you how to prepare meals quickly and with confidence — and no measuring whatsoever.
What’s more, Adler coaxes you with her cheerful, casual guidance to trust yourself. To know yourself. To ascertain what it is you like. What you might want to do, with what you happen to have in your pantry shelves. She’s delightful, warm, kind, and modest. My heroine.
I took a page from her book. I began to glide with a little breeze under my own wings. She said something about the value of bread crumbs (something so simple). I begin putting them on most of my pastas. She showers everything with parsley. I planted parsley in the garden and now follow suit. She loves anchovies, as do I, and puts them in most anything, with little regard for propriety — anywhere a little umami is wanted.
I see my 18-year-old son do that naturally. He’s making a pasta sauce with what he finds in the fridge and pantry, and instead of pulling out the Italian tin of three-inch long anchovies packed in olive oil and salt which he’d have to rinse and filet, he flings open the refrigerator door and grabs the Thai fish sauce and insouciantly splashes some of that into his sauce. The first time I saw this, I was astounded. He saw my face.
“What? It’s anchovy juice, mom! The same thing!” He laughed.
I was flooded with relief, filled with a warm glow. I basked in his confidence and silently thanked God that not only had he not inherited my timidity — he was already sailing strong on his own steam.
