Cloudburst

One of my first acts of courting Kate was to make her a pancake breakfast.  Not post hoc mind you.  They were terrible.  They stuck.  They scorched.  They were not fun at all.

Granted I had not cooked anything in a long time.  We were both working at a residential environmental education school and all our meals came from the cafeteria, were eaten with 60 or so kids, and each contained at least one song.  We lived in dorm style accommodations with a common room containing a stove.  So, one weekend, I decided to make the fateful pancakes.

Under the combined duress of trying to impress a girl, and really wanting some damned pancakes I cracked.  I threw nothing short of a tantrum.  Some of that behavior is learned from a tirading mentor who used anger to negotiate line cooking emergencies; and, some of it is my own innately short, but quickly repaired, fuse.  This type of situation has recurred, and it has puzzled me.  Why, when forces align against me to create a botched meal situation do I get so inconsolably angry?  And, usually only at home.  When professionally cooking, problems are just part of the game and solving them is almost enjoyable.  The breakdowns are exclusively personal and often have as much to do with circumstance as cuisine.

I am not proud to say it happened again yesterday evening.  I had made a positively beautiful chuck roast of grassfed Scottish Highland beef.  A true delicacy braised in a beef bone stock and finished with sweet onions and carrots.  But Kate had an after dinner meeting.  The kids had been riding our nerves for days.  And I forgot to cook the accompanying potatoes.  When I realized that, that the meal would be incomplete, and couldn’t be postponed, my cloud burst. 

My voice thundered and eyes flashed.  I sent the boys to separate rooms.  I slammed cupboards.  And, I pulled the plug on the nice dinner.  I yanked some hot dogs from the freezer and dumped a can of beans atop them in a pot. I grabbed my over shirt and wool cap and a hip flask and told Kate hot dogs were on the stove - I’d be back in an hour.

The ounce or so of whiskey warmed my chest and belly and even my fingertips and relaxed my anger’s grip.  The creek’s flow soothed my mind enough to allow me to shake my head at myself.  What generated such foolishness?  And, why the volte face on dinner?  Arguably the only rational move I had made.

I refused to eat that beautiful food in an angry mood.  To relegate to an ashen palate that animal’s sacrifice, that farm familiy’s hard work; to take that food for granted.  I realized that as an artisan, that meal was my art, such as it is, for I don’t really feel that food is art.  And, I wouldn’t desecrate it by serving it without the simple respect it was due.  If we couldn’t sit down and take pleasure in the meal, we wouldn’t partake of that meal at all.  Worse, to deliver it, incomplete to the table and to still walk out, for removing myself from the house was imperative, would have been to lay a selfish guilt trip on my family.

I came home and put the kids to sleep.  Kate went off to knit with new friends.  I ate my dogs and beans and  watched the games and didn’t really root for anyone in particular. 

Today I am famished. We will have a lovely early supper before Kate works.  We will take our time and savor those unique flavors that say “Wisconsin, good grass, black dirt, and slow oven.”  I’ll be grateful to be alive and in this place, and I’ll look forward to a sunny day soon.

Worth Waiting For