In fact, I probably cry at least once a week. Sometimes I cry out of pain or anger or sadness, but more often than not I may be crying out of happiness or relief. But I never thought I'd cry over a cookbook.
Michael Ruhlman proved me wrong. I was reading the first section of his book The Elements of Cooking, which is broken up into eight "notes on cooking." The eighth note was on finesse, which he explains using a quote from Lulu Peyraud: "Finesse is the opposite of coarseness or crudeness. It is a light touch as opposed to heavy-handedness. It is spirituality, subtlety, and intelligence, from which comes an aptitude for knowledge and deeper understanding. It is also a matter of sensibility, of perceptiveness combined with a great deal of delicacy in regard to emotions and feelings." While Ruhlman highlights finesse being sense-based, like being able to tell the difference between a "sanded, oil-rubbed piece of cherrywood versus a split log," Peyraud struck me with her association of finesse with spirituality, perceptiveness and emotions. That feels good and right to me. It reminds me of the conversation of quality that Robert Pirsig engages in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Finesse, in fact, makes me think of quality. Finesse, I think, must be present for quality to be present. Ruhlman hits on this point when he describes the practices of finesse as resulting in "knowledge for the person putting it to use. The exertions required for finesse are not expended but rather transformed; struggling hard to achieve finesse does not leave us spent and empty, it fills us." My eyes filled with tears as I read that sentence.
That sentence speaks so much to my struggle right now: my struggle with my job, in which I am paid decently to work for a non-profit but to do administrative work that I find unfulfilling and unsatisfying. My work leaves me feeling empty, not full. My work leaves me feeling exhausted, not invigorated. My work leaves me feeling drained and soulless. I do not take pride in my work. I do not practice finesse, I do not produce quality. I do not care about the details.
This is not like me. I am someone who lives in the details, especially in the details that make all the difference. I am someone who has a deep, deep desire to create and produce quality with my hands, though I struggle to express it. I find some solace in fixing computers, though it's not as direct as I would like. I find more solace in working on my car, though my knowledge is very shallow and limited. I find satisfaction in drawing, though I do it so very rarely and am very unpracticed at it, so it is not at fulfilling as it could be. I wish I could express it through woodworking. I express it in some ways in cooking, though I feel my attempts to be amateurish. Perhaps this is what Rumi meant when he said to "let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love."
What do I love? I find this very odd (strange, yes) satisfaction that I get from organizing things, and creating space where before there was none. I did it today at the office, getting rid of donations, reorganizing, moving things, packing things differently. How much impact will it have? Not much, really. I could have stopped at just getting rid of the donations, but I kept going because I found it soothing and comforting and quite satisfactory and perhaps the most fulfilling thing I had accomplished all week. but I don't know that I could make a career out of that.
"The surgeon who ensures that his or her stitches, in repairing a baby's heart, are spaced perfectly uniformly so that the stress on the tissues is uniform, is expressing a degree of finesse that has life or death implications. Finesse should not be considered a flourish, an extra final step, but rather something fundamental in our actions. . . A builder of wooden boats is a different creature from one who builds fiberglass boats. A surgeon for whom finesse is second nature understands the human body and healing and decay with more depth and clarity than the surgeon who has no sense of finesse. The cook who cares as much about peeling asparagus as he does about making a beautiful finished plate will have a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, the work of the professional kitchen and what it means to serve people than the cook who is only focused on the end result."
No comments:
Post a Comment