The Scullery of Imperfections.
Sometimes the objects that simply work best in our kitchens are not the most aesthetic, modern or attractive. In fact, their perfect utility causes us to wrestle with their imperfections.
It is nearly one year since I moved to this new kitchen, in this new place and these new ways of breathing and moving through life and space. A year of mostly silence as I have battled loss (over-proofed sourdough), failure (burnt salmon fillet) and the loneliness of working hard to fill a house with new dinner guests.
A half-dozen unfinished essays, one bruised heart and 2 overripe avocados later; I am trying again to tell you about the spoon I couldn’t dispose of in the move here.
It’s important to understand that for my chaotic, magical brain to thrive - I enjoy order, structure and the beautiful calm that exists in aesthetic harmony, matching cutlery, crockery and everything in it’s place. Art on the walls, complimentary mismatch of texture and colour but all of it comfortable and welcoming. Mostly, it works well for me. The fireplace on, music playing, candles lit, food, wine and cocktails on the table and well-used vessels filling the dishwasher. All of it, manaaki (to support, cherish, give hospitality to, protect, to show respect, generosity and care for others) that is the art I make in my life.
Until I wrestle with this damn spoon, the only one of it’s kind in my house. Heavier than every other spoon in the drawer and a perfect tablespoon if measuring by liquid. Mostly, it sits well in my hand and on the tongue. When cooking, taste becomes temperature, texture as well as palate. So this spoon, thick enough stainless steel that it does not heat all the way through when dipped into soup thus I do not burn my tongue.
Cooling ripples of blowing air across a broth do not tip over the sides and splash on unsuspecting wrist. A perfect concave arch that encourages the holding as well as the sliding of sour cream with a satisfying plop. It is, however, dull and old-fashioned in the metalwork of the stem. Thick-cut and scratched up, that perfect tablespoon measure in a somehow displeasing egg shape.
Each time I pick up this spoon, my hand is relieved and my eyes bristle. I wrestle with the daily imperfection of this otherwise perfect object. The spoon is my mirror. In a year of loss (my father, the possible lover, the sense of safe place and community I left behind), failure (a contract, failed friendships and the failure to lose those kilos I wanted to leave behind) and the loneliness of a kitchen entirely my own but empty most nights — I have assumed the world is wrestling with me the same way I wrestle with the weight of that ugly spoon. Undesirable but hard to know what to do with.
Very useful, but not something to cling to. The spoon you use for tasting and dolloping, but not what you put on the table. Not what you serve to guests. Kept in the drawer to make things work seamlessly behind the scenes but not what you take to dinner or present where the accolades fall.
Perhaps it’s the same with the chipped Pyrex measuring jug and the blackened sourdough pot and the backsplash that is never quite clean enough for me? With the not-quite-modern enough but they’ll do for now plates and the old wooden chip bowls I took from our family home. The ones I use, but never present to guests. There’s something about the scullery of imperfection that makes the meal possible but my own pride and misbeliefs that don’t like it to be seen. The ugliness I live with.
I would never choose a matching set of those spoons to set a table when putting my best foot forward, but to do my best work I won’t give up that one. It is utterly unique in my kitchen. I choose that ugly spoon and it’s perfect balancing weight that makes it graceful and deft in my hand, but only behind the scenes.
So maybe there is a lesson in giving praise where praise is due — to the crude steelwork of the 80s that made that spoon, and every pair of hands that somehow helped that spoon on it’s strange orphan way to my kitchen drawer. At last recognised for everything she offers, but not even I have given her the decency of appreciating the robust cut of steel that gives her perfect weight and balance.
Maybe these days we eat too much with our eyes and not enough with our hands and the other senses that reveal the true wholeness of the experience. You know how often the beautiful object sacrifices its usefulness to be thus.
Maybe we’re all ugly spoons somehow, hidden somewhere in the scullery or the pantry draw. Some magic of our own carried in the scullery of imperfection. Quietly chosen only by those who know what they’re doing. The comfort of an aesthetic cannot match the comfort of acceptance. Today I’ll choose to eat with the ugly spoon — my company for dinner and my companion for savouring the meal, not simply making it. A Cinderella spoon at last taken to the ball.
I suspect it will be cannellini beans with lemon and dill, in a simmering broth. Why not make the dish to celebrate the perfections of this object? Why not pretend for a meal, that such a healing act might also heal something within me? Perhaps choose to believe in magic, a spoon that has clung to me more than I have clung to her — for just a moment such as this, to mirror back what it is to find perfection in my otherwise unseen and perfect self.
In this year of loss (of self-esteem and confidence), failure (to cling to rituals of hope and remembering) and working too hard to be chosen by some other cook, some other alchemist of wonder — there are moments for the meal alone, in the house by the lake where I am the guest of honour.