I always want to be more than who I feel I am at the moment.
There seems to be some key formula to being a well-rounded, confident adult that I lack. Everyone else posts YouTube videos with impeccable eyeliner, link arms with a well-matched significant other, know the right way of matching patterns that seem to clash on even the most open minded mannequin, and - of course - cook dishes that their plethora of lovely, unaging friends coo over at their weekly dinner parties.
At least, that is how the world looks from the vantage point of my Instagram feed.
And I know it's not true, that everyone from the most enviable of Buzzfeed producers to that one friend who always seems to be jetting off to Hawaii is just trying to figure the world out. But that doesn't stop me from feeling that there are some things I could be doing more of and maybe those things are what keep the gray cloud over my head and the sunshine from pooling into the cold floorboards that line my heart.
Like cooking.
I want to cook.
I don't expect a mastery in the kitchen to grant me a funny, square-jawed husband* or the right words to say in front of a large audience or better plot twists for my novels, and that's what makes me want it more.
I want it to be like baking for me, where I don't care how lumpy my cake looks on the inside as long as its taste reminds me of how life was like when my grandfather was alive or fills me with that seasonal vim and vigor that makes you realize how good it is to be alive and in a world where we have autumns and Christmases (which, yes, I don't celebrate, but I can fully appreciate the concept of gingerbread and spiced baked goods).
And yet, I always chicken out and return back to baked goods whenever I've printed out a recipe that sounds promising and easy and boasts only fifteen minutes prep time. I always feel like there's something more I need to be doing with cooking. There's an invisible Gordon Ramsay in my head, pressing bread slices to either side of my face in anticipation of my idiocy: pot scalding, oil not warm enough for the onions, poor presentation.
Add to that the typical Desi upbringing to anticipate the exact cuisine your future partner will appreciate most, and it just becomes Amateur Adult Hour all over again. I've done coconut chicken curry, stir-fried vegetables, sweet and sour chicken, and pulao rice that passed my uncles' approval with a silent and unanimous second plate, and yet I wonder if I'm learning the right recipes, if I'm just choosing the easy ones.
I worry that I should be learning what it means to appropriately add umami and if it's a problem that I am always substituting for what seems easier, if there's something wrong with me if I prefer handling chicken over the more complicated world of fish (and being half-Bangladeshi too, shame, shame).
I overthink it all.
I think that's why I'm particularly grateful for the gift of Salt Fat Acid Heat in my life and on my Netflix queue.
Samin travels the world, unapologetically cheery and round and brown, and finds open hearts and warm ovens wherever she goes. She rolls up her sleeves to expose a gold bracelet much like the ones my late dadi ma wore and only slipped off her wrists to adorn a new daughter-in-law's arms. She eats and finds goodness in whatever she is offered.
And she feels that everyone can have the same experience.
It is not a restricted world of cooking. Every dish, from humble and simply spiced to preceded by four other courses, is welcomed by her and has its time and place. Yes, she has formulas, but she always reassures her viewer that they are formulas that everyone in the world follows and intrinsically knows and can repeat for themselves and the people they love.
And it makes me feel so welcomed. It makes me feel so seen.
It makes me feel like I can choose a recipe that I've always fancied would go well with a quiet afternoon, sunlight through the open kitchen blinds and my sleeves rolled up and maybe a series of quiet instrumentals piping through my headphones - maybe quiche, or jap chae, or Nigella's Turkish eggs that have enchanted me since I read her instructions to "eat dreamily", or the hand-pulled Italian pasta Samin insists are not hard to make in the Fat episode of the series - and make it happen.
Make it warm.
Make it tasty.
Make it mine.
I appreciate that. I appreciate her. I now have the originating book on hold and hope that it, too, will fill me with that confidence and that understanding that this isn't about prerequisites like everything else in my life right now: programs and job applications and all the other adult stuff that seems fashioned to make me feel like a bumbling fool who took the wrong turn at every exit given during high school.
You don't have to wear a chef's hat or restrain from happy, striped sock dancing over the tiles while you do it.
It's about enjoying the process, and anticipating the end, and appreciating all that goes in between.
And the me that is right now can do it as much as the me in the future I want to be.
*If you were wondering:
my parents feel very much that this will happen once I cook more often. I have my doubts.
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