The cookbook was going to be step one, mainly because the bookshop was across the road from the train station. It was the technical bookshop, where I also buy all my Nerd Books, but it also stocks things like cooking and philosophy. I was expecting to show up, find a whole shelf of "Stir-fry stuff" books, and pick the one that looked most user-friendly. Such was not going to happen. The closest I came was the half-inch thick "Womans Weekly Asian Cookbook", which I wasn't going to buy because it would have been confirming stereotyped gender-roles.
Staring out of the shelf, taunting me, was the yellow-bound Cooking for Dummies.
I fucking hate for Dummies books.
for Dummies books are patronizing. They're saying to you: "You don't know anything about this. You can't understand this, so we're going to use small words. We're going to talk down to you because that's what you deserve." I know, I'm going to get everyone saying "Oh, I bought [foo] for Dummies, and it helped a lot!" but this is my personal perspective, which comes from never having owned one. And with this attitude, I never will, no matter how much the book says seductively from the shelf... "You barely know how to boil an egg, Charles. Buy me... buy me..."
Then I saw it. Zen, the Art of Modern Eastern Cooking
My teacher Suzuki Roshi said, "When you cook, you are not just cooking. You are working on yourself. You are working on others." I invite my frustration, anger and sorrow, my tenderness, care and compassion to come into the kitchen with me. This is not the same as giving them free rein to do what they want. If this were so I might hide in a hole in the ground or beat a pilow with my fists. Instead I invite them to join me in cooking. Anger becomes intensity and focus, energy and vigour. Sorrow reaches out to touch and be touched. The afflictive emotions are transformed into nourishment.
Oh, yeah baby.
So now, I am not going to cook. I am going to embark on a spiritual journey involving Bok Choi, peanut oil, and a bloody big knife.
