How One Recipe Can Change Your Life - Part 1
I did not ask for what was about to happen to me, but this day would change my life forever. The gravitational pull between mind and spirit had begun. I was unaware at the time. It was harmless really: make a chili recipe at the request of my girlfriend. It was a typical bitterly cold February day in Minnesota; the frosted windows and gray skies told the story. So chili was a perfectly reasonable ask. I had never made anything from a recipe, and besides grilling some burgers or scrambling some eggs, I never cooked. I was greener than green.
What I did was to make this easy request difficult. I did not want a simple recipe but one that would impress. Why not make it interesting? Not knowing what I was looking for, I saw a few cookbooks on the shelf and decided to take a look. I found Hell's Kitchen Chili in The New Basics Cookbook. It was not your everyday chili. It didn't even have ground beef, which made it more gourmet in my novice opinion. I would be the hero creating the best-tasting chili she'd ever had. Well, that's what I thought anyway.
How hard could it be?
I'd watched countless family members in the kitchen produce breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was as confident as ever and energized by the challenge. So I got in my frozen car and headed to the store to buy the ingredients. I kept telling myself it would be the best chili ever. I didn’t spend much time in grocery stores and generally don’t have a lot of patience, so it was get in and get out. I quickly headed back to get started.
Before I unpacked everything, I started the chili – a little premature I would find out. It didn’t take long before I had every pot, pan, kitchen utensil, measuring device, knife, cutting board, and can opener out. My frustration mounted quickly. With no YouTube videos to bail me out, I proceeded as best I could. So without any organization or prep, I read the recipe line by line and continued to get deeper and deeper in the hole. When asked to dice an onion, not knowing what that was specifically, I selected a perfectly dull knife and pulverized the onion, resulting in a mess.
I knew I was in trouble.
I didn’t even have it in the pot, and I was wondering if I could get this done. Imagine measuring spices, slicing meat, cutting the onion as you go, and wearing half of it on your shirt (no apron, of course). The rest was spread out over the counter in a cross-contamination hazard. Still motivated to get through it, I pressed on because I could not come to the end of this with nothing. So I continued adding the meat and the rest of the ingredients, put it all in the pot with a sense of relief, and it started cooking away.
What’s a simmer? Hmmm, not sure exactly. It was the little things that got me. I was cooking on an electric range, and controlling the heat seemed complicated. One minute it’s bubbling and the next, nothing. I was convinced the burner was playing games with me. Is this right?
Thirty minutes later I noticed a slight burning smell, and sure enough, I had burned the chili. I tried like hell to remove the burnt bits, but nothing was helping; it tasted somewhat burned with no remedy in sight. At that point, I waved the white flag and hoped the toppings would cover it up.
The salt in the wound was the clean-up. My goodness, the time it took. This was a horrible conclusion to a difficult journey. It kept reminding me of my incompetence that day. Even if I wanted to forever forget that day, the cookbook still exists as proof, with its stains like scars signifying the battle. I learned a valuable lesson.
It's time.
We finally sat down to eat the chili after hours – yes, hours – of getting it ready. The good thing is that my girlfriend, now my wife, spoke highly of it, acknowledged my effort, and thanked me for making it. But something just chapped my ass and I couldn’t get over it. I was so disappointed.
I have made countless mistakes in my life, but this felt different. I became so determined not to have it happen again that I bought 'The Professional Chef,' a Culinary Institute of America course book, and began working through it. It was thick and very descriptive, just what I needed. At the time I was simply improving my kitchen skills, not knowing what it would ultimately lead to. As I continued working on my knife skills and learning about mise en place and proper kitchen management, I became increasingly interested. I went through this culinary bible of information page by page engrossed in all the details. This is when I developed my passion for cooking. It went beyond the norm, and I found myself daydreaming about it constantly.
It became an obsession.
I couldn’t be stopped.
That single chili recipe, born from a simple request, ignited a spark within me that would ultimately shape the course of my life. What started as a frustrating and humbling experience transformed into a lifelong pursuit of culinary excellence, a journey to self-discovery, and a newfound appreciation for the power of a single dish to change the trajectory of one's life.
Are you ready for your journey to begin? Never be afraid to try something because you never know what's waiting to be ignited inside of you. I have been to amazing places and met interesting people because I followed my destiny. Without that gravitational pull, the following stories would not have happened.
