Ah, perfection

I’m not so sure how to feel about Heston Blumenthal’s In Search of Perfection. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, in each episode, Blumenthal, a world-renowned chef, tries to perfect one popular dish. Things he’s tried in the past include the perfect burger, the perfect baked Alaska, the perfect chicken tikka masala, and the perfect trifle. Blumenthal’s restaurant, The Fat Duck, has been voted one of the top 2 in the world, and he is undoubtedly a culinary genius. From what I’ve seen him do, I am impressed (and, trust me, I have high standards).

However, having watched several episodes of In Search of Perfection, I’m starting to wonder whether dear old Heston isn’t just trying to make the rest of us poor sods look bad. Okay, I’m sure this isn’t the case. (He seems like much too much of a sweetheart to be malicious, and I have to admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for him because he reminds me a bit of my brother, who is also a chef). But the perfectionist in me is actually slightly resistant to this whole notion of perfecting a particular recipe. I’ve been spending years trying to distance myself from my consuming compulsion for perfection. And now Blumenthal’s telling me he’s devised a recipe for the perfect risotto? How can I resist at least finding out how it’s done?

The real problem, though, lies in the feasibility of Blumenthal’s projects. At the beginning of each episode, he states that he wants to create recipes that people can reproduce at home. Uh, yeah, I don’t think so. His recipes are so complicated and time-consuming that I honestly can’t see even the most adventurous of gourmets trying their hand at them. I mean, with the baked Alaska, you need to have dry ice. Who has dry ice? Really.

You have to, of course, be impressed by Blumenthal’s research. He will scour the globe in search of the best ingredients and techniques. It’s actually really heartening to see someone try so hard to make something so good. I feel like (in North America, at least) we’re all in such a rush to get things done quickly and to do more, more, more, that hardly anyone sees the value in doing things well. In the end, this is the redeeming aspect of the show. That Blumenthal cares enough to aim for quality is really a mark of his integrity. So maybe his search for perfection ain’t so bad after all.

Sex in the kitchen

As per usual, I’ve been watching a lot of the Food Network lately. And do you know what I’ve come to realize? My lack of ample cleavage is holding me back from becoming a first-rate cook. While I used to be able to count on Nigella Lawson as the only gourmet who sexed it up in the kitchen, these days, more and more culinary TV personalities are upping the sexual ante, and, frankly, it’s making me feel a little inadequate.

It seems that everywhere I turn someone is wearing a tight shirt, showing off their biceps, or making eyes at the camera while whipping cream into stiff peaks. More often than not, Giada de Laurentiis has a breast buffet ready to be served, while Rob Rainford, host of License to Grill, was recently referred to by one of my friends as “the barbecue porn guy,” I assume because of his near-orgasmic enthusiasm for all things grilled.

When compared with these folks, I’m as unsexy as overcooked, cold noodles. My kitschy aprons make me look more like a 1950s housewife than a 21^st century sex bomb. And when you cook like I do—trying not to get food in my hair as I wipe the sweat from my brow—the heat in the kitchen really is only coming from the stove.

But outside of my own personal inadequacies, I have to say that my kitchen isn’t quite making the cut either. This is what happens when you spent most of your 20s as a student and now don’t have much disposable income to dole out on fancy kitchen accoutrements. It doesn’t help matters that I currently live in an ancient building with appliances that are clearly sub-par. I also never know what room temperature is going to be in my kitchen because my radiators have a mind of their own. So I’d have to say that anywhere between 15°C and 27°C is the norm. To add to this, my freezer barely freezes, my cupboards are mounted up so high that only giants can reach them, counter space is practically non-existent, and once I went to use my silicone pastry brush and found that it had been chewed up by mice. Talk about throwing a wrench into your plans. Outside of these little obstacles, there is always a space issue to overcome. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that my kitchen is probably smaller than Michael Smith’s home pantry. How on earth am I ever supposed to compete with that?

My growing sense of inferiority only intensifies when I remind myself that everyone but me has all the fanciest, sexiest gadgets available: expensive mixers with dough hooks, coeur à la crème dishes, mandolines, ice cream machines, deep fryers, martini glasses, and Jamie Oliver’s patented Flavour Shaker. Oh, Jamie, darling, I love you, but I am not going out to buy one of your shaker contraptions, and that’s that.

Coming up against all of these impediments and being faced with chefs who have the best of everything, my zeal for cooking is sometimes slightly diminished. And yet I persevere, I suppose because, in the end, I love eating and feeding people too much to give it up just yet. So I cook, and I bake, and sometimes fabulous edibles transpire. And I guess on those days when I feel like my sex appeal is waning, the best I can do is pucker my lips, undo a few shirt buttons, and hope to god that I’m sexy enough to make a decent dinner.