Painfully taught by the blistering curse of the slow learner
ISOUGHT Sue. Desperate with pain and worry I scoured this little town, went high, went low, looked here, looked there, and found her finally neither here nor there but quite close by.
‘‘Thank god,’’ I said and knelt and looked up with those spaniel eyes of mine all wet with tears. ‘‘O Sue,’’ I cried, ‘‘O Sue, the queen of cooks, who's spent a life in kitchens cooking every way there is to cook, just tell me Sue, because I need to know, does it ever end?’’ and then the tears welled up again and I curled upon the floor and wept anew.
‘‘There there,’’ said Sue and laid a soft and calming hand upon my shoulder, ‘‘does what ever end?’’
‘‘The reflex action, the thoughtless grab, the pain and blistering, the . . .’’
‘‘Why don’t you,’’ Sue said gently, ‘‘take a deep breath and slow down and begin at the beginning?’’
I took a deep breath. I slowed down. I began at the beginning. ‘‘I bought a frying pan,’’ I said. ‘‘Bravo.’’
‘‘Not one of those cheap and lightweight nonstick jobs that barely last a week, nor yet one of those mighty castiron French affairs that last until you grow too weak to pick them up, but rather an affair of burnished stainless steel with a metal handle riveted to its side, a thing of simple and enduring beauty. But it wasn't for its beauty that I bought it. I bought it for its cheffiness.’’
‘‘Its cheffiness?’’
‘‘Exactly. On television I'd seen chefs with such a pan. They fried meat briefly in it, then, and this is crucial, they put the whole shebang, both meat and pan together, in the oven to carry on cooking. Oh me oh my, I thought when I saw that, how sensible and economical of washing up and how preservative of juiciness. In short I thought it was a bloody good idea and so I bought one.’’
‘‘Bravo.’’
‘‘I cooked a pork chop first. Herbs, butter, sizzle, flip, sizzle, then I opened the oven door and in she went, the chop and pan together. How cheffy did I feel? I felt cheffy to the levee, Sue. I felt good.
‘‘Because I like my chops well done, with the fat made crackling, I waited maybe 40 minutes before I opened the oven door. There lay a chop in a frying pan all cooked right through and sumptuously cracklinged. Thrilled, I did as I have done with frying pans these 60 years, I grabbed the handle.
‘‘Oh Sue. When I had stopped screaming, and running round the kitchen with the hand held out as far away from me as possible I turned on the cold tap and stood there at the sink with my hand in the running water for 20 minutes, Sue, and all the while, as my burnt flesh throbbed and the blisters swelled, I could see the pan in the open oven and the pork chop shrivelling to leather but I had lost all appetite. How could I have been so stupid?
‘‘It took a while to lose the blisters and another while to find the courage, but I tried again, at last, with lamb chops. Herbs, butter, sizzle, flip, sizzle, etc but this time, when some 30 minutes later, I opened the oven to extract them, I had already prophylactically cloaked my grasping hand in an oven mitt as thick as a Trump voter. The chops looked good. I put the pan on the draining board while I assembled little new potatoes, boiled and buttered, and some edamame beans, my latest fad.
‘‘I fetched the lamb chops with a fish slice, but they'd stuck a little. To steady the pan I grabbed. Oh Sue. When I had finished screaming and was standing at the sink, my hand beneath the running tap, not only had I lost all appetite again, but I had also lost all faith in my ability to override my handlegrabbing instincts.
‘‘That's when I thought of you, Sue, you who'd surely been through this when you began your life of cheffery, and so I ask you, Sue, I ask you now on knee so bended it could double as a paper clip, when does it end, if ever? How long before a cook, in your experience, learns that a hot pan handle's not for grabbing? How many times did you, Sue, sear your own flesh, how often blister palm and fingers, before you learned the lesson?’’
Sue looked down on me with eyes that shone with kindness, sympathy and fellowfeeling.
‘‘None,’’ she said.