There’s a great series on Netflix called ‘Chef’s Table.’ Each episode features a chef who has reached the pinnacle of chef-hood, if that’s a word.
While the food is epic & the artistry something to behold, it’s the common theme of memory that I’ve found interesting. Each chef has memories of childhood foods, family and a place that anchored their path in food. They’re recreating the memory of happier times while constantly moving forward towards the edge of creativity by reinventing themselves in the present.
Each one has stood on the edge of failure, questioning whether they wanted to keep following their dreams despite the uncertainty of success or walking away from the dream in order to stay safe.
Every. Single. One. Jumped. They didn’t stand on the shoreline watching their dreams sail away. Not everyone wants to be a Michelin chef. We’re not all dreaming of being the best of the best. Many of us are trying to find ‘permission’ to follow modest dreams.
Maybe the answer is lying behind us, buried somewhere in the memories of an easier time.
Writing and music were my anchors as a child. Those were the things that brought order and calm to the chaos of a broken family. Happier family times were anchored around meals. My grandmothers couldn’t have been more different. My paternal grandmother was Welsh and had no clue how to cook basic dishes but she made sublime Cornish pasties, sausage rolls, crumpets and minestrone soup. Ironic given that Cornish pasties are an art form in themselves yet cooking cabbage was a challenge for her. My father’s standing joke is that he didn’t know cabbage was green until he met my mother.
My maternal grandmother cooked in the traditional South African farm-style way. She had crazy baking skills and could cook anything from offal to venison to Sunday roasts, and all the random bits in between. She was the master of comfort food. Christmas fruit cakes, plum pudding, jams, preserves and rhubarb crumble.
I miss those foods and while I won’t ever have kids or grandchildren to pass those down to, those meals can stay part of the tapestry of my life in the present. So what if they don’t make it to the next generation? They can still live on in mine. Maybe somewhere between the kitchen and my computer is a creative answer to the eternal question of ‘what should I be doing with my life?’
I’ve had many homes in my life and if I take the best flavours from each place, it’s a unique tapestry fit for a gypsy soul. South Africa, England, USA. Writing. Cooking. Creativity. Photography. 4 art forms that are vastly different yet when combined create something new.
This could be the recipe for balance that addresses the first item on my To Do list: Change of career. Changing a job is simple. Changing a life path is a completely different project altogether.
