“Cooking, like sex and dancing, is a pleasure best shared.” (James Barber, The Urban Peasant)
Somehow I made it into my 20s not having any idea at all how to cook. Honestly, I don’t think I was very interested in learning. I liked eating, but I had no interest in how the food got to my mouth. I was perfectly happy eating a sandwich on my way to the barn.
Around the age of 22 I took a job at a busy show-barn and I was often so tired from working and riding that I had no desire to go anywhere anyway. Because we were in the country we had only 3 channels – one of them being CBC. This was a glorious time (in my mind) for CBC because on Friday nights they would show Mr. Bean, The Kids in The Hall, and This Hour has 22 Minutes. Even if I had the option to go out on a Friday night I would choose to stay home so I could laugh myself silly all night.
But at 10:00 am every weekday there was this man who would come on the CBC. A man who ended up changing my life. I fell in love with James Barber the first time I watched his show The Urban Peasant . I think part of the reason why I was unwilling to cook – once I moved out and had no other way to actually feed myself – was because I had no idea how to do it. What if I didn’t have an ingredient? Did that mean I had to scrap the whole thing? What if I didn’t measure something properly – would it be ruined? What if I followed the recipe perfectly and it turned out tasting like crap?
James Barber was cooking some sort of stew and was talking away and went to grab a spice. It wasn’t on the counter where he thought it was. He turned and went through his cupboard and it wasn’t there either. Instead of going into full out panic mode like I would have, he just said ‘Oh, I’ll use _______ instead, it will make it taste just as good’. I was like ‘you can do that???’ It changed how I looked at cooking. It sounds simple I know, but watching him free flow and create in the kitchen gave me the confidence to start experimenting myself.
Some of the the things were pretty gross that I made, but some of them were actually pretty good. And as I practiced they got better and better. I gained some confidence and some basic knowledge and started to really enjoy myself. I began taping his show (old-school on the VHS) in the morning so that I could watch it when we were done cleaning the barn -and I was so tired I could barely move. I started developing a real (one sided) relationship with him.
Years later my sister in law treated me to a cooking lesson with him. It remains one of the coolest things I have done. He was just as awesome in person as he was on TV. Full of passion and fun and life. He made all of us participants as excited about the meals he was creating as he was. I remember the food he made, I remember how it tasted, but probably what I remember best was what he said – it was something like: “If you ever move into a new apartment and you’re having difficulty meeting people, just put some onions in your frying pan with some butter and start browning them. The smell will be so amazing that people will start coming knocking on your door just to see if they can have a bite.”
Over the years I bought all of his cookbooks and made almost all of his recipes. Everyone around me got Urban Peasant cookbooks for their birthdays and Christmas.
I have always felt a huge amount of gratitude to this kind man who taught me not only how to cook, but how to love to cook. I think of him when the kids are creating in the kitchen. They approach it with the same freedom and joy.
Sadly he passed away in 2007 at the age of 85, but even that he did in a way that showed how much he loved the life he was living:
“He was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a cookbook when he passed away,” said his wife Christina Burridge. “There was a pot of chicken soup on the stove. He would have been pleased.” She said his death was sudden, unexpected and most likely a heart attack. (from his obituary)
He made me want to be like him – loving what I was doing. Living the life as they say.
My happiness moment on day 43 of the 44 days of happiness came early this morning. The kids were sitting at the kitchen table in kind of a stunned silence waiting for breakfast. With the time change it’s now dark when they get up so we sit staring at each other instead of the sunrise. Jacob slumped down in his chair and said “It’s still dark out, why do we have to get up before God gets up? This is wrong!”
Which I agree with, but they do have to go to school sometimes.
We went on to talk about how nice it had been to have these latest snow days off. Jenna mentioned how different it would be if I was working. I said that they would have to be dropped at a sitter, or have someone come in and look after them. Jacob said how hard it would be to have to go somewhere all summer long and not be able to just hang out and sleep in in the mornings. They both looked at me and said thank you for deciding to stay home with us so we can do things together. Jenna said she was so happy that it was me that was the adult who was with her and Jacob said that he was happy that we got to spend time together. I told them how happy I was that I was so blessed as to be able to watch them grow and to be there every step of the way.
It was a real heart warming moment. There is such a struggle for women – to work or to stay home – and both of them have huge benefits and also huge downsides. But this morning, in that moment I felt my inner sunshine as I knew that all the choices I’d made were the right ones for us.
