Cooking and Perfectionism … A Tale
Cooking, for me, has always been a deep dive down the perfectionism rabbit hole. My mind goes a million miles per second. I overheat almost immediately, my stress level goes through the roof, and an emotional wave of immediate failure and that voice saying “you know this isn’t going to turn out right, why are you even trying?” I mean I know, it’s just cooking right, why the emotional turmoil?
I’ve thought about this a lot and certainly have and continue to work on my deep need to show up perfectly in all sorts of areas of my life. I think it has a lot to do with control and following the “rules” – two things my perfectionism loves. I need to follow the recipe just right in order to control the outcome and if anything is off or did not go right – then it has to be my fault - I must have done something ‘wrong.’ I must be wrong.
Well, this morning brought a beautiful lesson of cooking and perfectionism. My husband recently had surgery. I wanted to do something special for him during his recovery, so I offered to make his absolute favorite dish – quiche. In making this offer, I knew I’d be up against that voice in my head – you are going to mess this up. The kitchen looked like I had just taken eggs and cheese and thrown it all up into the air. The pan I used was so warped that when I put it in the oven the quiche was tilted so much that it began to leak not only on to the sheet pan but down onto the actual oven, so the house started to smell like burnt eggs and cheese. I recognized my perfectionistic voice trying to tell me I messed up, didn’t do it right, I had failed. I heard it, I listened to it, and then I said to it, I am okay. These things that happened are okay. It doesn’t mean I am a failure, or even that this quiche is a failure. Doing something for someone I love is the reason I showed up in my kitchen this morning, NOT so I could show up and perfectly execute a quiche.
A few bites in, my husband proclaims, “well done, love, executed perfectly!” Perfectly .. no, because while perfectionism is powerful it is also bullshit. But this morning’s quiche was made with love and a true desire to do something special for the person I love the most