Vanity Cooking and How it Diminishes Quality of Life

Martha Stewart No More?

Hello America I have bad news to tell you. Which could actually be good news. In the last thirty years, you’ve been sold a bill of goods about cooking. Cooking is not a game or a recreational activity. Vanity cooking has obscured a human truth. Which is that cooking is work. It’s satisfying work, good work, but it’s not a game, a fashion show, or an opportunity for ostentation. At least not at its best.

What is Vanity Cooking?

Vanity cooking is a term I made up. When it’s vanity cooking, the idea isn’t to eat the food, it’s the presentation, the experience, that *cost*, even. The whole thing seems to have started with the Martha Stewart Quick Cook back in the 80’s. Martha Stewart’s idea was that you could work a job, stop at the market on your way home, and then have a beautiful dinner on the table “in about an hour” after you got home. The picture on the front was of Martha serving dinner on her lawn in a pink dress and pearls. The recipes were good as far as they went. But the point of the cookbook wasn’t really getting dinner in an hour. It was “you can have it all.” Domestic goddessly speaking.

Of course, we *all* know that you can’t “have it all.” You can’t even say “have it all” with a straight face anymore. But we still have this idea of vanity cooking.

I had this realization earlier this week, while looking at a beautiful cookbook I bought several years ago in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The cookbook is called “Cafe Pasquale” and it’s about an iconic restaurant there.

Santa Fe is a sacred and mystical area of ancient orange brick walls, tiny paths between buildings, art galleries, a fountain or two. There are artisans selling handwoven items and leather goods on the street, and right in the middle is Cafe Pasqual.

If you want to eat breakfast there on a weekend, you have to wait an hour. They served me a dish with fried tortillas, eggs, black beans, bananas and tomatillo that was delicious. I had to have the cookbook. So I could make it at home. And return to that magical Santa Fe.

But that was four years ago, and I’ve used the cookbook only twice.

You Can’t Cook Like That Every Day

Why didn’t I do it more? Well, it was a lot of trouble — so many ingredients. You had to fry bananas, and that is a new skill. I do cook every day. But I don’t cook from a cookbook like that every day. I cook like that *maybe* once a month.

The rest of the time, I short order cook. I cook fried eggs with salsa. I make tacos from leftover pork roast.I freeze the roast to make more tacos later. Pizza on Sunday, and I freeze the pizza pieces for lunches. I make rice in the rice cooker, and with the leftovers I make fried rice. I throw together coleslaw and other salads to take to work.

Why don’t I cook like at Cafe Pascual?

• I don’t have time.
• The ingredients aren’t in the house
• The ingredients aren’t in the grocery store, they’re at a specialty market.
• They’ve got a sauce on the ingredients list that costs $20.
• The recipe includes a type of chiles that you can only get in Denver.
• I don’t have the special cookware you need.
• I don’t know how to fry bananas. I can’t tell when they’re done.
• I don’t have the garden fresh tomatoes it’s November.

How many of us are like this? Everyone. No one cooks from those cookbooks every day. And that’s okay. The problem is we feel we should, or can more than twice a year.

This is What’s Wrong with the Way We Cook

That’s what I mean when I say America has a perverse relationship with cooking. We believe in vanity cooking. We believe every meal just might be some kind of massive work of art. And if we don’t have time to do that, we get take out. But take out is really bad for you.

Cook Like You Mean to Live to 100

I’ve been reading the book Blue Zones by Dan Buettner about regions where more people live to be 100. In these regions, I’m learning, every one of them, food is central to culture. Local food is cultivated. Then it’s brought to the table. There is no vanity cooking in these places. I doubt they’ve heard of Martha Stewart. Most people are not cooking food with a lot of rich ingredients either. They cook local food. They cook the same dishes over and over. I’m pretty sure they’re cooking off the top of their head. Like I just did when I made leftover corn beef hash after a long day at work.

So that’s why I say we need to change our idea about cooking. Cooking is not a game, and it’s not a sport. It’s a job, it’s work. But it’s a labor of love, and like so many things we love, simplicity is key. Sorry, Cafe’ Pascual cookbook. Maybe I’ll make the special breakfast prickly pear cactus sorbet this weekend. But probably not. For the most part — cooking is something we should keep simple.