Living Without a Net: An Odyssey into Self-Employment: The Crock Pot Approach to Living

B-friend loves his crock pot. Every time we use this vessel--a standby of graduate students and people with no time to slave over a stove--he makes it a grand event. Several times a month he makes a list of ingredients that will go into his latest concoction. He always prepares the morning before--slicing and dicing vegetables, throwing in spices--some of them frighteningly random, and tossing in some sort of meat before setting the timer on slow cook.

I look in on all that raw stuff sitting there, unconsolidated, in the pot and think to myself, how could this possibly turn out? And yet, every time, as the house becomes fragrant with something that could pass for a special at Chez Panisse, the dish turns out to be the best--whatever it is--I've ever had.

"Man," I say to b-friend. This stuff is amazing!"

"Of course," he says, without laughing at himself. "It always is. It always will be."

I resent his confidence. How can he be so sure that his recipes will turn out brilliantly every time? I cringe when he dumps in what strikes me as an irresponsible amount of Cayenne pepper, or I suck in air as he dumps in a teaspoon of cinammon--something completely inconsistent with a savory dish--"to give it a nice kick." His ingredients don't always make sense to me. And sometimes, I just want the simple, tried-and-true things--a sweet and sour cabbage soup without cumin, or a beef stew without any curry. Yet I can't recall a meal that turned out poorly using his gut-inspired method.

People like b-friend, I realize, who make sumptuous feasts from seemingly incompatible ingredients, and who never question that they will turn out better than Emeril's, have the stuff of true soloists. No matter what--their projects will always turn out.

I always ask b-friend when we can reprise his latest, brilliant concoction, and he always says the same thing:

"Don't know. Maybe never." Even when he agrees to make it again, he changes something and it tastes differently than the last time we had it. I'm sad knowing that we may never have beef stew like the batch he made earlier this year, but his new curried version isn't bad. I suppose I experience a mix of sadness and pleasant surprise; even though his dishes are always different, they always taste good.

I wonder why I haven't gravitated more toward the crock pot. I suppose it's because I don't trust enough. In terms of my cooking style, I'm more of a watcher--I like to watch my ingredients at all times. I suppose that's why I don't cook very well or bake very much. I'm compelled to witness every moment of a food's transformational process, watching cheese melt or batter solidify. Clearly I'm hardly a candidate chef of long-term dishes such as stews or 25-pound turkeys. The times that I do remove myself to do something while my food cooks, I often forget about it or get bored with it. And, as I drag it out of the oven or off of the burner, I curse it for being too crispy on the edges, or too runny in the middle, or like an ugly cousin of the version in the cookbook. I think to myself, "I shoulda kept my eye on this."

I often have to follow recipes to the letter or they'll turn out horrible. I don't have a sense for how ingredients can combine, nor do I remember instinctual steps like chilling dough or adding baking soda unless I am explicity told to do so. I don't throw pinches of anything into a pan; I gauge it carefully in a teaspoon or other official implement--my indemnity measure in case the dish turns out less than perfect; you can blame the recipe, not me. 

I never thought twice about my cooking style--let alone how gastronomic lessons could apply to my career--until recently, after a series of seemingly unrelated events, the ingredients of which I list below:

1. Watching a bevy of cooking programs with b-friend. Some people have ambient music or R&B as background noise in their house; we have Alton Brown and Iron Chef. While I usually tune out these shows in favor of much more important fare--blogs--I suppose some of the lessons have seeped in through some form of unintentional osmosis.

As I was sauteeing some vegetables one night, b-friend reminded me to add some decent wine, "only use what you would drink," he said. Those words of wisdom sounded quite familiar. I believe I overheard Emeril saying them in between annoying grunts of pleasure over his latest roux.

"I know," I said, dumping in too much at once and drowning our Swiss chard. No matter, the lesson from this stuck. While b-friend is a great cook, he wasn't born knowing the virtues of cast-iron. He simply immersed himself until he, himself, became seasoned.

Consider how many of us soloists question our abilities to take on new pursuits--"You want me to do WHAT?" you say to yourself, while nodding your head at a new client. You wonder whether you have the experience, the knowledge. You don't realize what you've picked up from the background noise of your former corporate years. You forget that, being a soloist, you have the opportunity to pick up more of the noise out there than others do. In fact, that's a large portion of your appeal.      

2. Throwing caution to the wind and adding a little extra clove to what turned out to be the best batch of gingerbread cookies I've ever made. Dare I say they were better than my grandmother's, whose recipe I borrowed? It didn't seem possible; I'm not the baker in the family. People usually thank me not for the food, but for trying. Yet, I veered from the recipe and I discovered why I'm usually less-than-enchanted with my cooking: By following others' recipes to the letter, I lose my passion for the result. By adding my own spice I own my work. No wonder b-friend always alters his concoctions; even if the more outlandish ones don't taste traditionally good they taste inspired.

3. An interesting, unusual ingredient (like the dollop of orange marmalade my sister dumps into her lasagna sauce): Wayne Dyer's The Power of Intention, which I finally dove into after a month of dabbling. I thought I was a scholar on the power of intention, but I mistook intention for wishes. Sure I WISHED for a fulfilling, successful path, but I never actually INTENDED one. I planned other courses, in case it didn't work out. I watched things heat up, never taking my eyes off of my job, in case things started to burn or look like something I couldn't recognize. When that happened I took it off the burner, or reduced the effort to simmer, assuming I'd ruined the meal, or I'd throw in more salt--too much--hoping to expedite the evolution of its flavor. In the end my creation tasted underdone, or underloved, or like too much wishing it tasted better.

A watched pot never boils--yeah tell me about it. But I've always found it tough to just throw years of experience and a desire into a pot and assume it would work out.

My aunt has been a teacher for almost 30 years. In Ohio, that means you can retire. The thought of doing anything--except live--for that long is daunting to me. Even if I'd accepted the career path of an educator, I'd jump around from school to school, sample new subjects, maybe even try an administrative position if it was offered. For most of her 30 years my aunt has worked at the same school, doing the same job. She stopped watching the pot long ago. I can't even imagine. Yet, she's built a legacy without straining.

Then there are those who have moved around from job to job, project to project, without a care for security or wealth. No one can guess where they are going to go next, but it makes sense to them. Their path follows their unique, individual logic. And it always seems to work out for these people. These are also folks who don't watch pots. And for not watching, they find abundance without having worried about it.

I'm starting to get the dynamics behind trust in the universe. Sure, preparation is required--the right tools, the right outlook, background and experience, and intention is the secret sauce. But once these items are in the pot your life can cook on its own.

If your intention is to have a meaningful life, whatever you throw into it will turn out. The only thing you can do wrong is to second guess, over compensate, or, worst of all, not let it happen.

Comments

[Kenneth1247]

Interesting post!

[Stacie]

As always, you've made me think about priorities. I often have wished for a road plan or "recipe" for my career path. Yet I'm the same sort of cook that the B-friend is. Perhaps I should be balancing the two together and have a general idea of where I want to go and play the rest by ear.

[Joy Des Jardins]

The bottom line is...you've become a VERY good cook; and you've come up with an incredible secret sauce.

[Marilyn]

GREAT post, Jory. "Sure I WISHED for a fulfilling, successful path, but I never actually INTENDED one." I keep thinking that if I leave Dyer running on PBS long enough--without actually paying attention to what he's saying--that maybe I'll pick up some of it by osmosis. (A watched Dyer never boils...) :) This post reminds me of why I'm a crappy a) cook and b) job hunter. :)

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Very interesting post Jory. Lots to think about, and now I'm hungry. Thank you for the food and other thoughts.

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