cooking – Fractalis – An ongoing journal

So many things in life come down to that viscerally emotional cliff-edge between fear and love.
It’s not always clear how fear and love are connected. They are not exactly polar opposites as much as forks in the road – individual choices, up for grabs at any time we choose to embrace them, that will take us towards very different territories of lived-experience.

I increasingly think of this dichotomy when it comes to my incredibly sporadic relationship with cooking.

I do often enjoy the process of cooking; the technical intricacies, the exactness, the alchemical feel, and I almost always enjoy the end results no matter how badly they turn out.

But I don’t always enjoy the process. More often than not, it’s the motivation that I struggle with – the act of suppressing the negative thoughts that crop up before I even step foot in the kitchen. What if the end result is a failure, even after diligently following the recipe? What if the resultant pile of washing-up I create makes me miserable and ends up sitting on the worktop for two days afterwards? What if the recipe assumes I have a certain technical skill that I do not possess as I have not attended a fancy cookery school, worked in a professional kitchen or even been physically shown how to cook by another person? (how do I coddle an egg, emulsify mayonnaise or sauté vegetables?). What if it requires that I have a certain implement or machine that every kitchen but mine seems to have tucked away somewhere? (no, I do not have a mandoline, a mortar and pestle or a pie bird).

The thing I have learnt, over time, with all of these fears however, is they are just that; irrational fears, with very little foundation in reality and which very rarely come to fruition if I’m brave enough to simply grab the bull by its horns and step foot in the kitchen to give something a go.

Whenever I remember the love I feel for cooking certain dishes or developing particular skills in the kitchen, my muscles loosen, my heart soars and the motivation to cook comes flooding into me like a breached dam. When I think about baking with my Grandma’s rock cake recipe, cooking a curry for a group of friends and even chopping vegetables with my favourite, super-sharp knife or frying something in my well-cared-for carbon steel pan; my fear drifts away and the love I have for the alchemical process of cooking washes over me.