That which makes spontaneous gesture possible
What makes someone a good cook? Many people I’ve asked answer that question by mentioning something about confidence in the kitchen and the ability to wing it — throw something together with limited ingredients, in an unfamiliar space perhaps, despite various obstacles. I like to tell the story of visiting a friend in Montreal who’s a great cook. We’d brought some strawberries from the market and gave them to him, and then started catching up and became so involved in the conversation that when he served us the strawberries as part of a salad, with fresh arugula and almonds and a light vinegary dressing, I was startled because I hadn’t noticed him cooking at all. The dish was simple (though perfectly seasoned) but what made it impressive was the naturalness with which he incorporated something unexpected into his plan, the seeming lack of thought in his movement.
“One can aspire to feel real, one can help others to feel real, and one can oneself feel real — a feeling Winnicott describes as the collected, primary sensation of aliveness…which makes spontaneous gesture possible,” is one of many quotes that has stuck with me as I’ve read The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. This notion of “spontaneous gesture” is wonderful and it is indeed something I associate with aliveness or realness. It’s the way I feel in conversation with a good friend or how I felt at the peak of performance when I used to practice jiu jitsu or pole dancing. I feel it some of the time when I’m cooking or writing as well, and have learned to cultivate that over the years as my confidence has grown.
I think we’re onto something when our descriptions of “good cooks” focuses on their attitude and approach more than the food they produce. We recognize that something special and alive is happening when they’re in the kitchen, something between an improvised performance and the practice of a well-established routine. We know that the apparent effortlessness is the result of much learning over time, the way an Olympic figure skater’s grace is not exactly natural but the product of hard work. We have a sense of all that but it can still be difficult to see how to get there from where we are. How to generate that spark of energy from which all the practice flows?
It’s for these reasons that when I thought about how I would structure a cooking class, I decided to model it more closely on dance workshops I’ve attended than on traditional instruction. There are some things that can be taught in a kitchen, like food safety or knife skills, but that sense of confidence and freedom that is so necessary to momentum, to cooking as a craft instead of a chore, is more of a feeling to be inspired than a skill to be taught. I’ve taken a couple movement workshops with a great dancer I know and her classes take the shape of several songs with different prompts, like, Feel like an octopus or Try to make the smallest [or largest] circle possible. We do a lot of talking and little writing exercises as well, and all of that helps to create the quiet interior space that makes it easy to move freely.
I think the greatest thing I can offer in my cooking workshops is to hold a space for experimentation. A clear afternoon and a well-stocked kitchen might be enough for some people to go forth and create, but it might be intimidating for others, the way I feel in an empty room with good music playing and the too-open invitation to move. People have to feel comfortable — with the others around them, with the possibility of messing up, and with the right level of support and encouragement so they don’t feel like they’re being tested. A little bit of structure helps to surmount the blank wall of fear that is natural when you’re asked to create. A community, however small, of others to bounce ideas off of or ask advice from, is also helpful in dealing with paralysis. Attending a series of meetings rather than a one-off event feels necessary to me in creating that community and establishing some sort of practice that can hopefully be carried into the future.
The workshops I’ve run so far have been over Zoom, with everyone peering through laptops or phones in their homes. This has the benefit of people being able to join from anywhere in the country, and allows them to be in a space they know with all their own tools and ingredients, but someday I hope to conduct the workshops in person. There’s something about being out of your comfort zone that can make you more comfortable with trying new things. I have a vision of a group coming together once a week to exercise their imaginations in a warm, well-stocked kitchen, and then sharing the things they made at a long table with music and wine. I’m not in a position to acquire the kind of space to make that possible yet, but I hope someday to build it.
I just wrapped up the second iteration of this workshop, No Recipe, and I want to thank everyone who joined for the amazing, often surprising concoctions they cooked up every week and the space they held for each other so that we really could create a single small kitchen spread across many miles.
What I’m cooking
Granola for Ukraine!
I made this granola for the Archestratus bake sale for Ukraine, which is happening today from 2-6pm.
It combines a lot of the foods I associate with Ukraine. There are sunflower seeds and sunflower butter, for one of the country’s biggest exports. There are walnuts for the tree outside Anthony’s family’s house and dried apricots, which is the favorite food of their dog Elk. The buckwheat adds an unusual toasty flavor to the granola, and when you eat it with milk it’s reminiscent of traditional kasha porridge, which is just cooked buckwheat served with warm milk.
Recipe in last Friday’s newsletter, for paid subscribers: