Hopefully, you have a lot of moments you can look back on and laugh at. True, if you’re laughing at them, it probably means they didn’t go so well at the time, but at least you’re laughing now.
We were supposed to leave Rochester between 9 and 10 this morning and get a jump start on the trip; I didn’t finish packing until about noon, and Kelsey made everything fit into the car–if it weren’t for her, half of my stuff would still be sitting in Rochester. By the time we got everything packed, filled up on gas, and ran a few final errands, I think it was about 1:30.
We took the parkway along Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls. That’s when you could say, about two hours into the trip, that the wheels came off the wagon. First of all, let me say that the signs on the American side of Falls are terrible. Also, I don’t know what goes on at a Duty Free shop. Sue me.
Aaaaaanyways, we are looking for somewhere to park so we can walk to the Falls. We get mixed up and the GPS is yelling at us, so I turn into the next parking lot I see, ready to turn around. NOPE! Apparently, once you go into the Duty Free parking lot, you have to cross the border. There is a spike strip coming into the parking lot; you can get in but not out. And you need to buy a token to get across the Rainbow Bridge. So we went into the Duty Free, bought a few candy bars and the token, and went the only way we could: towards Canada. Getting to the border, we calmly explained that, yes, we had made a wrong turn, no, we didn’t have proof of citizenship, but it’s cool because we don’t actually want to go to Canada. They were very nice about it (as Canadians often are about things!), turned us around, and sent us on our way with few questions. Getting to the American side, we were still embarrassed–I was nervous, too–but we knew what to tell the customs agent. Of course, the American guy had to be an ass about things and lecture us before giving us a border-crossing pamphlet and letting us go.
We eventually found a parking spot, saw the Falls, and were back on our way, headed for the first check point in the trip, Sandusky, Ohio.
Someday, We’ll Look Back On This And Laugh
There are productive ways of dealing with mistakes. My go-to, which isn’t super productive, is to swear a lot, like a sailor who’s always looking to expand my vocabulary. And it makes cooking with me not much fun. It’s not the mistakes that bug my wife, it’s the way I react to them. So I’ve been trying to take the “you’ll laugh at this later” approach and move on as quickly as I can. And more than just moving on, I’m trying to learn from them. What could I have done instead? Where did my technique go wrong? Are there other opportunities with similar dishes I can practice on?
I love reading Cooks Illustrated because the premise of every single recipe is, “how do we improve this*?” The chefs will make the same recipes dozens of times, trying to improve it with each iteration. It’s almost like they’re going out of their way to make mistakes. And while they’re not making the same mistakes I am, there’s a way to look at it as, I’m out to try the same recipe a few times, too, also thinking “how do I improve this**?” each time.
Knowing that I’m not going to nail it on the first attempt — knowing that professional chefs and food writers don’t nail it on their first attempts — is a great mindset to be in. It makes me more forgiving of myself (“Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may know me from such self-help videos as ‘Smoke Yourself Thin’ and ‘Get Some Confidence, Stupid!’”) and it makes me more forgiving of the dish. I can’t sit down and figure out what to change next time if I don’t have a starting off point. So I make the meal, try to plow through any mistakes, and figure out how to make it better next time. Here are a few of the recent disappointments I’m trying to improve:
*The definition of “improve” can be anything from “make it taste better” to “make it easier to make on a weeknight” to “make it accessible to the chef who doesn’t have an entire Whole Foods in their pantry.
**In my case, the definition of “improve” can be anything from “just get something edible on the table next time” to “let’s actually enjoy this” to “let’s try something other than the super basic version I already know how to make.”