What’s Toast Got to Do With It
My cooking experiences and what I’ve learned from those
Toast
I love toast.
Thick slices, golden brown, covered in a generous layer of butter (but not too much) and jam (but not too little).
Yummm!
I usually cook this delightful treat at least twice per week.
But, what’s my point?
My point is that toast is the only thing I can cook.
While
- I dream of delighting with dumplings
- I’d be pleased to prepare the perfect pavlova
- I’d strive to sauté scallops and
- I’d boldly braise a brisket
sadly, all those aspirations are well beyond me.
In part, I blame my wife. She is a wonderful cook and nothing is too difficult for her.
She regularly presents the tastiest meals (which I always appreciate) but she then laments: “You never cook anything for me.”
That statement is not entirely true — I recall at least one occasion when I cooked toast for her!
Still, being able to cook is a skill I wish I had.
The abilities of my wife and the contestants on those television cooking shows fill me with feelings of gross inadequacy which I have not been able to overcome.
My adventures in the kitchen
But I was not always this reluctant to develop my cooking skills. I recall one incident early in our married life.
My wife was out so I resolved to surprise her with my cooking ability.
Consulting one of her recipe books, I decided brandy snaps were worthy of my attention — in other words, the picture of the finished product looked amazing.
I followed that recipe to the letter and produced what I thought was a passable likeness to the picture (but a little less amazing).
When I displayed my results (which included a clean and tidy kitchen), my wife was extremely impressed. She explained the “degree of difficulty” of cooking brandy snaps so my efforts were particularly noteworthy. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
The moral of this story — quit while you have a perfect record!
Nevertheless, being able to prepare a tasty and nutritious meal when required is an important life skill and, sadly, toast doesn’t qualify. And neither do brandy snaps when I think about it.
Which brings me to the BIG question . . .
How much do I want to acquire this skill?
It’s an established fact that to learn any skill requires an investment of time.
Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2008 bestseller Outliers, controversially maintained you needed to practice 10,000 hours to master a skill. Since then, studies have shown a lesser investment of time and effort will provide you with less-than-masterful but still adequate skill levels.
How uninspiring is the word “adequate”? — Just saying.
Unfortunately, I tend to be an all-in type so, if I’m going to do something, I want to do it properly (not “adequately”!)
While 10,000 hours is not going to happen, it’s a dollars-to-doughnuts bet I’d invest significantly more time than would be rational to achieve what I consider an acceptable result.
But, whatever the number, my rational side is saying: “Now hold on Thomas Keller wannabe, where are you going to find the time to learn?”
Good question.
- I could reduce the time I spend at the gym. So, I’d spend less time exercising to be around food more? Let me think about that logic for a while.
- I could reduce the time I spend reading and writing. That’s just not an option.
- I could reduce the time I spend in the garden. Of course, the lawn will stop growing so I don’t need to mow and the plants that crave my attention will thrive anyway!
- I could reduce the time I sleep. I get precious little of that anyway (just ask my Fitbit) so that’s not really an option either. And besides, flirting with a flaky filo pastry at midnight is as inspiring as “adequate”.
The established wisdom is that if the desire is intense enough, you’ll find the time. I know “Everyone has 24 hours to allocate in a day” but my 24 seem to evaporate.
I suppose I’ll have to accept that, although I recognise cooking as a great skill to have, it’s not going to happen for me.
But . . .
There is another option. I suppose I could ease into it gradually.
Maybe just pick a simple dish and master that before moving on to more complex challenges.
That could work. It’s certainly worth considering.
Why don’t I start with canned baked beans — on toast!
