The Reservations of Stew the Rice Thing

PSA: Kitchen Shrink columns promote good vibes. In coming weeks, the vibes will be even better. Good vibes only for all your kitchen worries and woes. Here, at least, it will be so!

Dear Tamar:

My grown son has gotten really into cooking. It’s more than a hobby. He’s watching food shows and constantly trying new recipes. He cooks every time we go visit him or he visits us. The issue is: his food isn’t…very good. It’s okay. But with a messy kitchen and lots of talk, it’s just kind of…average. Should we tell him? Please help us to…

-Stew the Rice Thing

Dear Stew the Rice Thing,

One of the most confusing dinners of my life was one my brother, John, then a college student, cooked for me and my boyfriend Ben. John was home from school—where he spent his time drafting a (still unrealized) blueprint for peace in the Middle East, playing rugby, and stage-managing student plays—including Linn Manuel Miranda’s thesis, On Borrowed Time. I saw the production and told my brother afterwards, with the arrogant conviction of an elder sibling, that I hoped the playwright had a back-up plan. I’d be a terrible theater critic.

I hadn’t though of John as a cook. But he was insistent. It was endearing. We’d shrugged and agreed to being cooked for. I only remember two of the three courses. The appetizer was large scallops wrapped in bacon, baked on a cookie tray. I remember that the bacon stayed fatty, which kept the scallops from caramelizing, leaving them sort of rubbery and bland. For our main course, John served filet mignon, slit every inch or so and stuffed with almost inedibly tarragon-y butter. The beef was cool inside, grey-ish brown without, some of the butter still cold, some melted out entirely. I have no idea what we ate for dessert. All told, the meal was…not very good.

Ben and I, though, malicious though we often were, had youth’s good instinct. We asked John polite questions about what he’d made and why. We told him it was beautiful. We thanked him profusely. We hugged and drank limoncello together until we were all drunk. We waited until John was asleep in the guest room/office to talk about how average it had all been.

I see now with the benefit of age—which may endow us with slower instinct but more wisdom—that the meal was better than average. I see how many of us live our adult lives afraid—to show our work, to show how much we care, especially if it’s about something we don’t do very well. If John had been older, he may not have had the nerve to cook as he did—innocently, badly. If he’d been older, he may already have hardened, having learned, thorough various cruel lessons, that to be innocent and whole-hearted leaves you vulnerable to pain. But John hadn’t yet learned. Thank god.

John went on to cook at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, at Restaurant Arzak, at St. John, at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, at Per Se, and Franny’s. Now, he’s the head chef of Blue Apron with fancy titles like Senior Vice President. He’s not only a very good cook—even in the face of an ongoing family debate over which of us is better—he has confidence, aplomb, an ability to make a meal of any ingredient, a steady job. I don’t take credit for all of this accomplishment, but I don’t think Ben and my early and vigorous approval hurt. I pat myself lightly on the back for all of it. Occasionally.

Dear cook, I encourage you to hold up your grown son as he endeavors to learn and love something new. Hold him up as though he were a still a child—in a way, he is. Don’t patronize him or lie. But give him the attention his efforts merit: questions about his choices, curiosity over the thinking behind a dish, engagement with what he hopes to make next. Stew over it all together, knowing that you’re feeding innocence and care. I truly (stewly?) think that keeping yourself firmly on his side is the right (rice?) thing to do.