How Cooking Has Made me a Better Writer

 How Cooking has Made me a Better Writer

 

I just finished a lovely brunch with a few coworkers and as we were stuffing our stomachs with mimosas and benedicts and talking about the latest work gossip, life, and who’s dating who I felt something beautiful in the moment. As I was driving home, back to the coziness of my room/office, I was thinking about what I would write next for my blog. I’ve been working on story beats for my work in progress, but I was also thinking about pieces to keep the blog fresh, and that’s when it hit me. There is so much that food and the dining experience has taught me about myself, human relations, and interestingly, writing.

            Food, cooking, and dining has a profoundly emotional and experiential tug on our hearts and the preferences we develop over time are affected by nostalgia and other factors which are primarily experiential. This is probably nothing new to anyone and there is a ton of different scientific explanations for this phenomenon, but what’s important is that the entire ritual surrounding food is something far greater than just taste. While taste is awesome and is important to making great food, it’s not only the flavor of food that creates these great moments within us, it’s the complete package.  Each time we eat a delicious meal, it is enhanced by the flavor, the company we keep, and the experiences we have that enchant the moment. And these three “ingredients” are how I’ve become a better writer through cooking. First, passion; second, thinking of writing as an invitation; third, thinking of writing as crafting an experience for all to share.

 

1.    Appetizer: Every flavorful meal starts with passion just like good writing.

Imagine that you’re biting into your favorite food. For you it might be something that your mom used to cook for you as a kid. Or maybe it’s a dish from a hole-in-the-wall type restaurant that blew you away. Or maybe, it’s something that you made with your own hands, something that you have yet to find better at any other place. For me, I can’t get enough of pancakes and curry! I could eat them all day, every day, and I love trying to recreate the delicious dishes I’ve tried and experiment with my own creations.

The point is there is passion and personality behind every meal we’ve ever had, especially the outstanding ones. You can tell when a meal is made with care and passion by the way it tastes. From a mother or father who cooks with love to a chef who cooks with passion for food and people, the best dishes stand out for good reason. There is a reason that fast food is fast food and not restaurant food. It’s not bad and can be good in certain circumstances, but it is by no means the pinnacle of flavor. The best chef’s make the best food when it comes from passion and love. 

This translates to writing. There is no point in doing something as arduous as writing if it’s not done with passion. Not all cooks get recognized, just as not all writers will get recognized. And as cooking is a labor of love, so is writing. I have learned to love and appreciate writing more through cooking, which has made me value and understand the commitments towards the things I’m passionate about. Good food requires patience, care, finesse (shout out Gordon Ramsey), and passion just like writing.

2.    Entrée: Cooking is an invitation for others as is writing.

One of the most welcoming places I have ever been to has been my uncle’s home in

the mountains of West Virginia. He built the house himself from the ground up making sure to install a stunning, modern kitchen for one reason. He loves to cook! I have spent many delightful 4^th of Julys at my uncle’s house where I’ve tasted the juiciest, tenderest, pork butt and brisket ever, and none have surpassed it to this day. My uncle even allowed me to help him make it and it was awesome! These are vivid memories that I cherish due to them being shining examples of when cooking was an invitation to me. Cooking that brisket with my uncle was an invitation to be vulnerable and learn more about the people I love. 

The truth is, in writing or in cooking, it can be sucky. You can make a bad meal and you can write badly, but it’s the failure that makes you successful. But that doesn’t make sense. How can failure make you successful? Failure teaches you to overcome and find the solutions that will make you successful in the future. This is true on a business level and on a small level such as cooking. Cooking has taught me to invite people to know me and experience my failure with me, and when I succeed, they succeed with me (and their taste buds succeed too!).

            Writing is also an invitation, an invitation to embark on a journey with the author, to get to know them and experience their story with them. Whenever you put passion into anything, it filets you open to celebration and admiration and painfully, critique. Cooking, when done with passion, invites people to like it or hate it, but that’s okay. Writing is similar in that it allows people to judge you and your work, and sometimes it’s not going to be received well. But that’s part of the beautiful process of cooking and writing. It’s an invitation to be known.

            That’s a big part of life, really, to know and be known be others. And I think that has been one of the biggest lessons that I have learned from cooking, one which has helped improve my writing. Passionate cooking invites others to know the cook, because it is vulnerable. Similarly, Writing is vulnerable and beautifully allows people to know me and my soul better. And when writing is done with passion, it is an invitation for others to get to know me, which opens the door for connection.

3.    Desert: Preparing a meal is preparing a shared experience. So, is writing. 

This past semester, I had the opportunity to cook with one of my best friends, a lively dude from Sierra Leone, with the heart of a lion, and the energy of year-old puppy. We cooked for our philosophy professor and had a few dinner parties with our friends and his wife. I loved cooking with my friend and making delicious food for the people that we love. 

These parties were amazing because we all got to share in laughs and connect around food. We all shared in a wonderful experience filled with laughs, diving deeper into our life goals after college, and of course, philosophy. We were all brought closer by food and cooking. This is what happens, too, in writing, when an author can bring you into conversation with him/her and other people over a shared experience. It’s wonderful to connect with other people over a book that you’ve both read, heck, there is Harry Potter World which is a whole theme park for people to connect from the humble beginnings of an author and her desk in England. She created something that people will cherish, bond through, and have conversations about for a long time. While I don’t want to compare myself to J.K. Rowling and her success, I do want to achieve the same invitation to a shared experience for my audience. And that has been something that I have learned through cooking.

 

Finale

 

All good cooking is rooted in passion and love for whom they are cooking. This opens the door for people to enjoy in the flavors of the prepared meal, get to know the chef, and finally, this creates space for a shared experience and connection. These are essential “ingredients” for a good meal (and good cooking), and these are all things I try and add to my writing. Without cooking, I don’t think I would’ve learned to be intentional about these things as I am now.