See this kitchen? It’s nice, isn’t it? Really nice.
This is not my kitchen. It will never, ever be my kitchen.
It’s this kitchen, though — and others like it — that I keep thinking about when I consider whether our Poet Laureate is correct in saying that learning to cook is a good start to finding happiness. But not for the reason you’d think — not because I think that a fancy $200,000 kitchen brings happiness. I don’t.
Don’t get me wrong. I would like a $200,000 kitchen. I would like it very much. But then I see a kitchen like this, and I think: nobody’s actually USING that room. Seriously. Take a good look. They have oriental freakin’ carpets on the floor. Nobody makes tomato sauce over oriental freakin’ carpets (do they?). So then I get started thinking about all those other gorgeous kitchens I’ve seen in my lifetime. You know, those stunning, clasp-your-heart kitchens that make you say Wow… And What would it be like? And What if… And Maybe someday…
Yet the kitchen, with all its Viking appliances and custom cabinetry and granite counters, is just sitting there. Just sitting there, dormant. It’s not getting used. Maybe there’s a cinnamon-scented candle on the counter to add a little aroma. But the only thing that gets made in it is a microwaved TV dinner. Maybe a carton of yogurt gets opened occasionally. Or a canned Slim Fast Optima Shape. Or a whole bunch of plastic take-out containers.
(perhaps your $200,000 kitchen is being used. Kudos to you. This is not an indictment of $200,000 kitchens. Like I say, I would very much enjoy one, even if I wouldn’t put an oriental carpet on the floor).
When I think about Simic’s comment about how to find happiness — for starters, learn how to cook — I think about those gorgeous, unused kitchens. Because gorgeous, unused kitchens do not seem happy. They seem the opposite of happy. But why? I’ve been mulling that since I read Simic’s interview. And I think it comes down to a couple of things, many of them already well-articulated by you smart, insightful folks:
1. Cooking can make you feel like you’re hanging out with Bobby McGee. You know, like you’ve got nothing left to lose.
Part of it comes down to rejecting the spotless kitchen as shown above. Cooking, real cooking, requires liberating yourself from any notion of “spotless.” Away, immaculate! Away impeccable! Away gleaming and sparkling and showpiece-quality! Away, charade of being a capable housekeeper! Be gone all charades, all facades! Hello, to chaos, my new best friend! What’s all this pressure for spotless, anyway? There is such pressure. Have you noticed that? Somewhere along the lines, what our kitchens looked like became far more important than what we did in them. And although I can’t say I don’t feel that pressure sometimes — of course I do — the truth is I don’t understand it. What do we care if people show up in our home and realize, hey, people actually live here?
Cooking forces you to let go of that pressure, to really make a mess and to figure out how to be comfortable with it. And to do that messing up, you’ve got to say okay, world, I’m going to let go, just a little bit, of my worry about what others might think. And in that moment, I suspect, is the beginning of something that looks like happiness.
2. Cooking smells good. Almost like good lovin’. Let’s chat about the sensuousness of cooking. Let’s talk specifically about the aromas, actually. All kinds of researchers who study hubba-hubba are recognizing the role of pheromones — scents — in putting us in the hubba-hubba mood. But why would it aroma affect only our naughty moods? Why wouldn’t all kinds of scents stimulate all kinds of moods?
I think they do. Think about how fresh-mowed grass can lift your spirits. Or the scent of jasmine wafting across a backyard. Or the smell of the ocean. Nobody disputes that these things can be mood-boosters on some profound biochemical level (would they?). And I have a hunch — it’s just a hunch, based on my own experience — that a bubbling pot of homemade soup, or some garlic simmering in olive oil, or (heaven! heaven!) from-scratch brownies baking away in the oven —can do the same.
3. Cooking can turn you into Frida Kahlo. Or maybe Harry Potter. Cooking is creative. You’re taking all these different ingredients, and blending them together in new ways — creating something entirely different from what you had before. I mean think about it. Think about what a group of ingredients looks like before you make something, and then after. Take those from-scratch brownies: on the one side, you’ve got eggs, and chocolate, and vanilla, and a hunk of yellow butter, and a bunch of powders. Then, on the other side, you’ve got brownies. Something happens in there. Some kind of alchemy. Or heck, let’s just call it what it seems to be sometimes: magic. It’s so rare in this life that we get to make magic.
4. Cooking can keep you from becoming the next unibomber. Cooking is an inherently social act — it’s something we do with others, for others. Knowing how to cook encourages us to bring other people into our lives. It gives us an excuse to connect with other people. We can invite people into our (messy!) homes (but we’re okay with that now!) and give them something wonderful. Even if you’re not a great cook, let’s face it — any meal that someone else prepares for us is wonderful. Not to mention, it gives us a reason to be with people during all of their highs and lows. We can bake something rich and chocolaty for someone who is feeling sad. We can stir up heaps of pasta with bubbling sauce for raucous children and their adults. We can make a pot of soup to celebrate a new baby, or baked chicken for a family in mourning.
I don’t know. I just can’t get past the thought that connecting with people like that — even just a handful of close friends, from time to time — is the key to something. Something that looks, if not exactly like happiness, then at least like something worthwhile.
5. Cooking can remind us that sunshine on our shoulders makes us happy. I hadn’t thought of this before now, but it seems so obvious. Cooking doesn’t just connect us with each other; it connects us to the natural world. Many cooks become inspired to garden. Others visit farms, or stroll happily through farmers’ markets. Even the produce aisle of a big-box grocery store can be pretty darn beautiful when you see all of those colors, all that bounty. So there’s another thing that cooking does: it puts you in touch with seasons, and with dirt, and with the sun, and with the miracle that you witness when a seed grows up into something nourishing.
All of that said, I’ll admit that cooking can be a darn thankless task.
Small children, for example? They don’t tend to thank you when you spend time cooking something wonderful for them. In fact, the Law of Inverse Culinary Gratitude states pretty clearly that the less effort you spend on your kids’ meals, the more likely they are to say thanks. McDonald’s and Lunchables get a huge thank you. Lovingly homemade mac and cheese? Not so much.
But that might just be the parenting experience in general. (Sorry to ruin the idyll, Future Parents of the World. But it’s kind of true. Not always, but often).
Which is why cooking should remain pleasurable, and not too pressured. Can’t cook up a fabulous meal every night? Of course you can’t. No one can. Even great chefs serve their children Annie’s mac and cheese sometimes.
So while cooking CAN make bring you pleasure, the pressure of it definitely will NOT make you happy. Nothing that makes you feel guilty will ever make you happy. Block Mr. Guilt at the door. Don’t let him in. He’s got no role in your happy-seeking.
So, here’s what I think is the formula behind Simic’s advice:
- Cook
- Cook with and for others
- Never cook to show off, and don’t worry what your kitchen looks like
- Breathe deeply when that garlic is simmering
- Remind yourself where your food comes from
- Don’t fear Annie’s mac and cheese
You guys? You’re a bunch of Smart Cookies; you touched on all of these, and then some. And that makes me happy.
Okay, more simple recipes — let’s keep pursuing this happiness thing, shall we? — to follow.
Loooove this. So perfectly timed for me. I spent the last 2 days trying to tame the disorganization beast and came pretty damn close. But then I made (in the final 24 hours) a chocolate cake with green (spinach!!) frosting for my kid’s class, banana-blueberry wholegrain muffins, whole wheat-honey-oatmeal bread (Soule Mama’s WHO bread), a Polyface beef stew, and mashed rutabagas-potatoes-and-spinach (more green!). Whew. Needless to say altho I’ve cleaned and cleaned my place is trashed. And I *am* happy, for lots of the reasons you so beautifully outlined. Great post.
11th Commandment:Though shalt not covet thy neighbors $200,000 kitchen
I’m not a mom (yet– 4.5 months to go). But looking back on my childhood, I’m sure I wasn’t grateful for the home cooked meal we had most nights, regardless of what it was. But it was because I didn’t understand it. Now that I’m an adult, I am *so* thankful that my parents invested the time and effort into our meals, rather than resorting to the take out, pizza, meal-from-a-box. So as thankless as it seems now, you are instilling good eating habits and planting the seed for future love-of-cooking and cooking-for-those-you-love in your little ones. They will appreciate it one day!
Now, cooking and baking for my family is the greatest gift I can give them…they love getting the call that says “I have a homemade (fill in the blank) that I need help eating.” From cake to bread to stuffed chicken breast, I always have a willing group of eaters. I see it as a way to pay back my parents for all the thankless cooking they did for me when I was growing up.
Resonates with one of Joan Didion’s essays in The White Album, where she tears apart the then new California Govenor’s mansion, especially the grand shiny but essentially non workable kitchen, as emblemmatic of a larger sterility, “designed for a family of snackers”.
Barbara Gruzzuti Harrison then writes an essay ripping into Didion’s observations as a disingenuous snob piece, etc.
If I recall correctly heavy vitriol from both sides centered around the significance or non significance of the kitchen’s lack of a marble slab for rolling out pastry dough…
I loved me some Mickey D’s as a kid (blech), but once I was 8 or 9, I’m not sure much else made me feel as loved as my mother’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes or chicken salad. Getting to pick what my mother made for us on our birthdays was a thrill annually.
All in all, that was a great post—and one I’ll try to remember when I’m stressing over guests seeing my messy kitchen or seeing a dish not come out right when that is entirely beside the point of me making them a meal.
Great post! And I do covet that kitchen a little bit, although I wouldn’t be keeping the rugs either. I do disagree with one sentiment though. Occasionally, I do like to cook to show off. It’s fun, we all get to try something unexpected and it’s always a little bit of a thrill. Of course, my friends and I all take turns showing off our culinary abilities, so maybe that’s what makes the difference.
That kitchen is sad and characterless. And probably needs lots of dusting.
This is a very cool post/train of thought. Thank you!
There is a slightly evil side of me that would love to cook in that person’s kitchen because I know what it would look like when I was done. But I’ll take my foodservice stainless steel and plastic lined scrubbable walls any day.
All true, all of it.
I don’t think that is a nice kitchen at all. Look at all the walking you have to do to get from fridge to stove to kitchen to sink to prep surfaces - you’d need a freakin’ Segway to be minimally functional in that kitchen.
When we were buying our house last year, I told my husband we should stay away from any house that advertised a “kitchen for the serious cook,” because that was code for “kitchen for the serious snob.” A serious cook doesn’t need marble, granite (OK, maybe one slab for pastry), hot and cold running filtered water, Italian tile, or (most important) too much surface area to clean. A serious cook needs lots of cabinets, a short distance between major appliances and prep surfaces, two or three decent sized countertops made of a durable, easy-to-clean material, a relatively soft floor surface (to minimize broken dishes), and a good gas stove.
I’ve never seen your kitchen, but I’m willing to bet that you are happier there than you could ever be in this monstrosity.