On Perfection, or: The Tale of an Ugly Omelet
I have something to tell you. Dinner got the better of me a few nights ago.
In the mood for brinner (breakfast for dinner), I planned on crisp hash browns and a veggie-and-cheese-filled omelet. Everything was fine until I tried to flip the potatoes using what I like to call the put-a-plate-over-the-skillet-flip-and-say-a-prayer method. But the result? In one hand, the hot, heavy cast-iron skillet with dangling shreds of potatoes that resembled stalactites. In the other, an empty plate. No amount of shaking the pan would loosen the disc of potatoes. So. Back down the skillet went, and I attempted to flip it by hand. The potatoes, though, had a different idea. They clung to the skillet like a child clings to his mother’s leg on the first day of school. They would. not. budge.
Leaving the potatoes with a frustrated grunt, I went on to the eggs, which by now had set up quite nicely. I filled the omelet with lightly sauteed peppers, fresh tomatoes, and shredded cheddar. But when I went to do the trifold, the thing ripped—in several places. There may or may not have been expletives uttered as I tried to smoosh it all back together, the fillings spilling and hissing into the pan.
Still to deal with was the darn skillet of hash browns, mocking me, now starting to burn. After 30 seconds of fruitless scraping with my wide plastic spatula, I grabbed the sharpest tool in my crock—a metal wok spatula—and furiously scraped the black-and-brown bits from the bottom of the skillet, burning my hand as I grasped the skillet handle.
At one point, Jason came into the kitchen to make sure I wasn’t losing it.
As I glanced, frustrated and defeated, at the scene before me—a broken, bleeding omelet and too-soft, over-browned potatoes—I remembered that first of all, no one is perfect and not every dish or kitchen experience will be, or even can be flawless. And secondly, I mean, really. I’m yelling at eggs and cursing a skillet of mushy potatoes? Oh, dear, there are things much, much more important to worry about than dinner being just right.
So…I confess two things. One: I do not always make pretty, successful, and tasty food. And two: I tend to be very hard on myself when things I make don’t turn out as I want them to. But isn’t that part of it? I’m trying to remind myself that even Julia Child, Hubert Keller, and Ina Garten all have had bad days in the kitchen. It’s how you learn. No one’s perfect, and life would be so boring if we were.
