The Tamesis
I was standing next to the stove and there was a little boy next to me. My son, who is six years old, is leaning against the moville jar. The copper needs polishing, but I don’t care.
“Stir,” I said, trying to convey a sense of urgency.
The child-sized silicone tool in his hand lay lazily in the custard.
“Stir,” I repeated, holding his knuckles in place to guide the movement. My tone lightened. “We don’t want scrambled egg pudding.”
“We’re making chocolate pudding,” he said, eyes wide.
“I know. But if we don’t stir, the eggs will cook and guess what?”
He rubbed his nose. “Scrambled egg pudding!”
“Correct.”
That was the end of my cooking class. As my son stirs, I shift my eyes from his technique to the surface of the custard, observing the slowly forming bubbles. A mixture of cocoa, eggs and sweetened condensed milk sloshes over the edges of the pan and drips down the tarnished side. Stovetop clutter doesn’t bother me. When my son and I cook together, I focus on what we are doing together, not the little mishaps along the way. Years of working in restaurant kitchens have taught me that even seemingly major problems are often solvable. I once worked for a pastry chef who believed that no custard was precious (immersion blender, Chinese custard). But making pudding with my son is precious to both of us – precious beyond measure.
I like to think I’m over the idea of re-parenting, but cooking with my kids is a clear sign that I’m re-parenting myself, or at least validating the adult I’ve become: i.e., a recovered perfectionist. I encouraged him to look through the recipe and learn that when we measured out 28 grams of cornstarch, a cloud would rain down on the counter. When he cracks the eggs, the whites leave traces. The entire spoonful of sugar will leak into the bowl. There will be unsanctioned spatula licks.
To be honest, I welcome cooking chaos. Come on – we’re going to make Creamy Dream Chocolate Pudding on Saturday afternoon. Once it’s been refrigerated for “at least two hours or up to three days,” what’s the danger besides having fun and enjoying the meal?
In fact, everything. I know all too well how these moments of connection can fail and add up to changing personalities and lives.
The women who raised me were so proud of their cooking that they became territorial about it: the food prepared by others was bland, unappetizing, and questionable for its lack of care. My grandmother went to culinary school in Chicago and sold homemade candies from her home. My mother inherited this passion for food. What’s breakfast if not a warm pear coffee cake or a sugar-covered muffin filled with apricot jam?
With bookshelves lined with cookbooks, mail piles filled with cooking magazines, and “Julia Child” reruns on TV, it’s no surprise that I wanted to participate in the activities in the house where the women had the most control. I learned the twin powers of secrecy and perfection—my grandmother didn’t need a crepe recipe. One correct method is to dip the measuring cup into the bucket of flour. The correct way, before a cookie scoop comes along, is to push a large chunk of dough into a perfectly round ball using just a knife and a teaspoon. I saw the imperfect results: plates of pastry cookies thrown into the trash can; oven doors closed; tears, curses, and self-blame heard throughout the room.
If I had not learned before the onset of my decades-long eating disorder that food was more than just matter, that it was worthy of reverence, that it held sacred pleasures, I might not be in recovery today. Although the food is rotten was pleasure. I brought the cookbook into the bedroom and copied the recipes in my carefully printed hand. A dizzying wave of nostalgia overwhelms my memory of the cinnamon sugar oozing from the fluffy fruit dumplings at my grandmother’s restaurant.
