The Non-Cook Manifesto
First and 3/4 Installment
First and 3/4 Installment
WORKING DEFINITION OF THE TERM NON-COOK
A non-cook is a person who does not think of herself or himself as a cook.
THE PROBLEM AND A WAY TO APPROACH IT
Do we mean to say that the non-cook would like to never cook? Never? Never cook at all, not one single side dish? Not one sauté, steam, or bake? Well, the non-cook can dream, but the non-cook would also probably settle for cooking less. A whole lot less. Because this is what the non-cook wishes: that the need for cooking was not so very frequent. As in, how about not so daily, week after week? What if you could cook about as often as you vacuum? Or about as often as you mow the lawn? Or as often as you take out the trash? If you don’t have a child in diapers or in the middle of potty training, the laundry can be forestalled a few days to a few weeks. The dishes can sit in the sink over night, the dust can gather on the books and knick-knacks indefinitely, and technically the bed could go a whole beautiful marriage, committed partnership, or failed relationship without ever getting made. But eating? Every day. Every single day. Almost always more than once! And even for the most resourceful, experienced, ingenious, sly, self confident non-cook, that great expanse of days, that relentless frequency of getting hungry and actual mealtimes, translates too often into COOK. There are some who do not consider cooking a household chore. There are some who believe that cooking and scrubbing a toilet, say, belong to totally different categories. This is a legitimate categorizing issue. OK. How should cooking be considered, then? Maybe the piteous answer is that cooking is its very own category. A big, ranging, complex one. It takes up a lot of space in the house, which its why it’s so hard to navigate around it when you’re trying to move over to the window so you can stand motionlessly and stare outside, overwhelmed by all the things you should probably be doing. It seems too cruel and unfair! Some may remark that it’s not such a big fat deal. Others may wonder why you’re making such a fuss. Still others may suggest that you go to the grocery store and buy a stack of frozen pizzas. But you’ve already done that. That, or any number of other things to mask, skirt, and dodge the actually pretty significant domestic challenge of being a non-cook. What can be next? Two options seem to present themselves: 1. Reform or 2. Become a better non-cook Is it possible to change? Is it possible for the non-cook to go with option 1 and become a reformed non-cook? Of course it is. People change all the time, superficially and other wise. But becoming a reformed non-cook is labor intensive: Number one, if you don’t or can’t cook you’ll have to learn to make a whole lot of things, maybe even start from the ground up with terrible projects like learning to boil an egg properly, and learning to care that it is boiled properly. Number two, if you know how to cook but have been successfully harboring a staunch no-cook stance, becoming a reformed non-cook will not require actually learning to cook, but it will require a draining attitude re-adjustment. This attitude re-adjustment involves an actual re-alignment of how you think of yourself , kitchen-wise, and then acting on that new belief. It’s like switching political parties, (oy) only with less paperwork and rhetoric and more non-metaphorical beating, whipping, and creaming. However, take note: Just because we can change does not mean that we should, and it definitely doesn’t mean that we want to. In fact, many non-cooks would much prefer to develop the non-cook talents they already have (non-cook talents may include: skilled and developed cooking avoidance tactics; openness to eating whatever you can get; ability to editorialize on the accepted standards of a normal meal: eg. pecan pie and some sliced tomato for dinner,etc.; astute partner selection -- cooks when possible, obviously) rather than learning a bunch of new skills, like how to blanche something, glaze something, or how to make a roux, not to mention trading can’t or won’t do attitude for can and will. Hello resistance to change! So what about the option of becoming a better non-cook? This involves working with what you have. This involves getting your kitchen coping mechanisms together, taking on new ones if they don’t cramp your style, and moving right along. This involves accepting yourself as a non-cook. After all, why serve whatever lousy meal you’ve scraped up with a seasoning of guilt, apologies, shame, and embarrassment about being a non-cook? That will not make it any better. Actually, it will make it worse. Bad food is one thing, but bad feelings are another. The lousy meal can stand perfectly well on it’s own. Let it be. If there's someone insisting that it needs to be seasoned, ask that person to track down a cook to do it with love, nurturing, kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper. Becoming a better non-cook means you know that you are not the same thing as your incompetence in the kitchen. Who cares that you wilted the broccoli beyond recognition as a once living plant? That is only one little thing about you! Becoming a non-cook means being passionate about your not cooking, when appropriate. You do not cook and you have your reasons! Contradictorily: Becoming a better non-cook means knowing that there are more interesting things to think about than not wanting to do something, throwing this manifesto into the UNNECESSARY class, to be sure. Hello non-cooks who not only don’t care about cooking, but don’t care about not caring! Please wait; I would like to catch up with you. Becoming a better non-cook means that you don’t let food get in the way of your basic self-concept. You know you’re a non-cook, and no amount of dinner preparation throughout the long meandering course of your children’s childhood can change that. You know you are a non-cook, and in spite of your commitment to free range chicken, organic vegetables, and genetically unmodified grains, you’d be happier if these worthy items would cook themselves. You know you are non-cook, and even though you love your partner, making his or her favorite meal bottoms the list of how you show your love. Oh no! Do you even know what his or her favorite meal is? You know you are a non-cook, and learning to properly thank the person who made you dinner (with detail and sincerity) is the most valuable food related skill you bring to the table, or wherever you are eating. It's valuable at picnics too, for example. |