In "Usain Bolt wins relay gold but GB disqualified at World Athletics" (2013), we learn that Usain Bolt, despite a distraction from a competing British runner whose team was subsequently disqualified, has continued his track record of excellence as an athlete, where he is now on a par with the best runners of all all time.
Cooking and running? Yes, there is a strong connection. Usain Bolt has become the world's best sprinter in part because he practises daily. I am sure that he also does other things, including perhaps a few rituals, but more on that later when I blog an interesting recent article published in Scientific American. Whatever natural genetic and other endowments Bolt might have, he would not now be the world's best without practise. On the contrary, if he sat around all day doing things like reading about running, or watching video's on how to run, or thinking about ways to run better, then he would not be a very good runner; in fact, he would far more likely be an overweight slow coach who couldn't beat your average high school kid in a race to the corner store. And cooking is the same: reading cook books and watching videos of great chefs in action has never made anyone a great cook: creating the perfect omelette takes regular practice, as does running 100 metres in whatever time it is that Bolt has achieved (I don't normally read the sports section, and haven't done the research needed here.)
Now that I think of it, I'm rather proud of my own omelettes these days, but this was not always the case: when I first started cooking them many years ago, I turned out some pretty awful messes, but those days of regular failures or bare passing grades are now long past, and I need not fear offering my result to peckish visitors, being reasonably confident that they will not find them totally failures. Of course reading cookbooks, and looking for tips on how to do it helps, but without actual practice, my omelettes would be no better than the sprint speed of a Usain Bolt who merely studied how to run but didn't get out there and do it so that his coaches could spot the strengths and weaknesses in order to encourage the former and correct the latter.
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Coffee, on the other hand, doesn't take too much skill or practice, at least not the regular black drip coffee that I like in a large mug twice, and sometimes thrice, a day. Just put in a new filter paper, pour in the right amount of water, turn it on, and wait a few minutes for fresh, invigorating coffee. I guess making coffee is like simple three-word subject-verb-object sentences from primary school: I like cheese. Rats chase cats. Cats eat rats. Omelettes fill me. It's hard to mess up the grammar, although mistakes are still possible, such as forgetting to put the pot under the filter, which makes a real mess on the floor, or having your cats being chased by rats.
ReplyDeleteBut the more complex skills, the ones that need to be honed by regular practice, are far more rewarding, and a lot more fun to play with.
DeleteAs Homer Simpson might say: "Mmmm ... omelettes. Mmmm ... convoluted compound and complex sentences with relative clauses <>and participial phrases."
And a now a light supper and classic bit of Agatha Christie on the TV. (Actually, it's YouTube, I watch it on my TV, which I never use to watch television.)
And you?