The Situation of Heart-on-Apron

Dear Tamar:

I wear my heart on my sleeve as I cook. I want the people I cook for not to be left wanting. Now that cooking is my profession, this tendency to feel as if I am part of every dish I serve makes each day an emotional rollercoaster. Do you relate to this? Is it something I will grow out of? Should it be?! How do I find the line between commitment and detachment in my cooking?

-Heart-on-Apron

Dear Heart-on-Apron,

When I first read Little Women, as a young reader and fledgling writer, I decided that I, like Jo March, had to wear a writing hat. Here’s the section that describes Jo’s:

Her "scribbling suit" consisted of a black woollen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This cap was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her family, who during these periods kept their distance, merely popping in their heads semi-occasionally, to ask, with interest, "Does genius burn, Jo?" They did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an observation of the cap, and judged accordingly. If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on; in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew; and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off, and cast upon the floor. At such times the intruder silently withdrew; and not until the red bow was seen gayly erect upon the gifted brow, did any one dare address Jo.

At first, it was a good luck charm. Jo was the March sister I aspired to be. Her writing succeeded. Some time in high school, though, the meaning of the hat shifted, without my planning for it. I became superstitious and wary. If I donned a cap and the words didn’t flow, proving me a vessel for burning genius, I’d jettison the hat and some portion of my literary ambition. It doesn’t sound serious, but adolescence and its successor, young adulthood, were serious for me. I put on a hat and failed to produce genius often enough that I wore through all the available hats and most of the ambition.

I became an editor. I sat, feet away from the people who edited David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith, and wished I could write, wished I could force myself to write, wished I had the courage to write something—anything—to show to my colleagues. After two years at Harper’s Magazine, I found the spine to write an elaborate description of a meal and show it to the magazine’s literary editor. His response was so respectful—of both me and the craft—that I still think of it occasionally. “Now we know you can write,” he told me, my pages in his hand. “So write this again.”

I didn’t. Anything less than the inquiry “Does genius burn?” was bound to douse the last flicker of my hope. I continued editing. I nearly went to law school. I became a cook. I enjoyed—even loved—each phase. I didn’t return to writing, though, until I was so depleted and depressed that I didn’t care if what I wrote was any good.

Only then, hatless, ambition-less, and nearly friendless, did I start typing. With nothing to lose, I loved the shapes of the letters on the screen. I loved the curves and slopes and finite punctuation marks. I thrilled at an em dash (—) and became unhealthily attached to both parentheses () and italics. I loved the click of the keys, the way time lost its regularity when I got on a roll.

Now I’ve written five paragraphs and only mentioned cooking once. I’ve been trying to describe my discovery of the advice I now give you: Learn to love everything that comprises the act of cooking. Loving the details of writing—AKA the process—as fervently as I once loved writing in the abstract is all that has provided me respite from a torment like the one you reported.

You ask how to find the line between commitment and detachment. Probably, cooking—like the rest of life—consists of drawing this line as you walk it. It’s easier to detach than to commit. (Exhibit A: my avoiding writing out of terror of its reception.) But it’s emotionally irresponsible to commit in the way you described: there’s the roller coaster it puts you on, plus the roller coaster ride of whomever you cook for, who’ll sense your need—and be emotionally conscripted. Therefore, I suggest committing entirely, whole heartedly, and ceaselessly to the process of cooking; and detaching as best you can from the outcome.

Dear cook, you’ll always care what eaters think. You’ll always want them to feel fed and happy and maybe even something more, as though a deeper, unarticulated need has been met. As you should. The trick is to invest your caring early. Commit hard to your knife work, to the sound of water coming to a boil, to the smell of chicken skin ready to be turned. Care as much as you can during the cooking itself, not about the outcome, but about the act. You’ll always care. But you can care less about what happens when you’re done cooking, enough to make the caring bearable.