How to make perfection happen in someone else’s kitchen. Or . . . In search of the best breakfast ever!
Cookies and Bars / January 20, 2017We are here, my friend Anna and I with friends. We are here with family. We are here in this tiny kitchen, ready and willing to make a masterpiece.
Sensing the distance between us, we instinctively know when to move and when not to as we dance around from stove to sink and stove again. With spoons, pans and knives in hand, we plan our work carefully. Available space is at a premium and achieved only through the careful nudging of treasures as we opt for an inch or an outlet to stir, roll or fry. Aprons on, cats secured, old china set out on the dining room table it was the perfect day for a birthday brunch…in someone else’s kitchen.
Perhaps you find yourself in this situation more often than not, and you make excuses when you cook saying woefully, “I can’t guarantee the results because…I’m not used to YOUR kitchen.”
Phooey. That is an inappropriate excuse. If one loves food and nourishing others, you can do your best to morph your style and your mood to whatever tools are placed before you. If you are cooking with love, IT WILL TURN OUT.
We find ourselves telling clever stories as we work through the smoky mist of bacon grease, breathing heavily because of the thin layer of flour that is EVERYWHERE. People arrive in streams, and most come into the kitchen to join us, even though there IS. NO. MORE. ROOM.
Young children come in to post art on the fridge. Guests hover over pans wishing they could take a bite. 10 year old daughters watch and ask, “What’s this?” “Bourbon caramel sauce for the scones,” I answer. “Whoa….” she gasps. And that’s why it is okay that nothing is perfect.
I suppose some folks, in all fairness, are terrified that all this work will fail when everything is unfamiliar, that diners will gnaw and swallow without satisfaction. That dishes will be dirtied in vain. And so they take that fear with them, and fulfill their own prophecy of doom.
Don’t be scared, I say. The sauce will feel it.