Finishing the Hat

What have you learned, Dorothy?

(no, Take That, Soviets was NOT the last one - I need a wrap-up!)

If you know me, you know that one of the few things I love as much as cooking is singing, especially musical theater and the Great American Songbook. Waking even before the ass crack of dawn on Tuesday of week 12, I found myself ruminating on the show that this experience would be - among the assorted other things that populate my mind at that hour: order of cooking, the 14 allergens, the ten duel commandments, One Last Time (We’re gonna teach them how to say goodbye), it is 3:30 this is a bad time to be awake I am going to have to nap today oh good I can but also I need to go to the store at the House for coil whisks and maybe a sweater for Izzy but I am mailing the box already oh good I got the label to work so much packing driving to Dublin can I do it on no sleep, I can sleep on the plane I can sleep when I’m dead and so on.

what floats around the brain at 3 am

Yes, there was more than one early morning last week with all the questions.

You all in the States thought that I was going to The Great British Baking Show over here but consider instead Ballymaloe: The Musical! SO much more going on, right? Of course it is the hero’s journey - all 66 of us - and has an absolutely adored beautiful and compelling leading lady and equally revered witty male counterpart, and some sage elders dispensing witchery and wisdom. There’s the Greek Chorus of office staff and farm workers and of course the many character bits from our teachers, each a star turn in their own right. Will the cows have a role? Absolutely! That murderous rooster? He’ll steal the show!

I could go on about the various characters but am mindful of the Capote Doctrine¹ so we’ll just have to have that conversation over a pint sometime.

Finishing The Hat has been top of mind for a while because that particular song is all about the tension between the creative and the quotidian. It’s from Sunday in the Park with George, a show written by the great Stephen Sondheim, about the painter Georges Seurat. That tension of how to nurture creativity while keeping a foot in the world around you is maybe related to the bubble of Ballymaloe and how to make it work in the real world. But the truth is that every time I made something at Ballymaloe, I felt like: look I made a hat, where there never was a hat.

(Not lentils, I don’t feel like I made a hat when I made lentils. Or cranberry sauce. But French Chocolate Cake? Now THAT was a hat.)

So what have you learned, Dorothy?²

In addition to all the cooking stuff and all the personal growth stuff that I’ve already gone on about, I hope I have finally learned to not shovel food into my cake hole just because it is there and I am hungry and that bag of crisps is at hand, but to take a moment to appreciate the dish and the cook, to ask about provenance, to consider the impact of my choices on the planet, and to think about what it is doing to the physical me. I have certainly learned that the remit is deliciousness! and that I can do good while eating well. And I’m happy about all of it.

some deliciousness

I’ve definitely learned a lot about food and how to prepare it to maximize deliciousness. For some of us, our time here might seem to have equipped us to do no more than throw fabulous dinner parties, and engage in informed criticism of absolutely everything we ever eat again.³ But would that be so terrible? If any of my new friends from here invited me to a dinner party⁴ I would be absolutely thrilled because I know that they would not be trying to impress their guests but would be cooking for themselves, for the sheer enjoyment of it, because they love to eat and to experience the world through all five senses. I know I would be generous with praise (ok in part because I’m a mom and that’s what we do but also because it will be deLISHous) and so happy to sit at their table. And yes, I might privately critique, because that’s also what I do. But you know . . . critics. For godssake take ‘em with a grain of salt (or several, as is The Ballymaloe Way) because, really, what the fuck do they know? Just take a moment to ponder this reflection on culinary criticism from the great Anton Ego.⁵

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extra-ordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: ‘Anyone can cook.’ But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

My new friends from Ballymaloe will need no defending, whether they are hosting the best dinner party ever, or offering a confit byaldi that rocks their Michelin assessor to their core. These great cooks came to this corner of Ireland from everywhere, and they will go and be brilliant anywhere and anyhow they choose.

I’ve also learned that East Cork is quite possibly heaven on earth, and as Rory said, maybe now it is in my DNA. I’m actually not sure how that is possible, but I do know that I’ve got a bag of deyhdrated sourdough starter in the box I mailed home which definitely has some YEAST Cork in it, and a jar of dehydrated water kefir crystals that just can’t wait to get bubbling away here in Cambridge. Have I left any of myself behind? I wouldn’t be sad if future students adopted Here’s To The Chefs, and I forgot to empty Rose into the discard jar,⁶ so maybe there is some Lisa in the bread shed, as well.

They will go on milking the cows, making the breads, teaching the students silly things like cranberry sauce and chili and brilliant things like how to use all the plants in the world and puff pastry and how to make things delicious. We’ll go back to the rest of the world and to be sure to be sure I won’t be the only one missing it all. Stepping off the plane into the color and cacophony that is Boston and the heat and humidity that shouldn’t be Boston but is I reel for a moment with the enormity of leaving and then steady myself by considering the massive weight of my recipe binders. Let’s get this bread, cooks!

Sláinte!

PS. There are approximately a million things that I’ve missed or forgotten in this newsletter. Cooks, feel free to remind me and I can do a follow-up! Everyone, thank you for reading.

1. When I started writing this newsletter, I was given one piece of advice by Bill: Don’t dish on your classmates. Remember what happened to Truman Capote and the Swans.

2. The Wizard of Oz: a hero’s journey if there ever was one.

3. You should have heard my internal monologue on the Aer Lingus biz class dinner service.

4. Please?

5

6. SHE’S NO DISCARD! The discard is used for future breads and crackers and starters so her heart will go on.