cooking with other people

uh oh

one of the best compliments i’ve ever gotten: a few years back, oomf agreed to help me out w the cooking for some party or event—i think it was a picnic. while she chopped garlic¹ she complained about her workday. i apologized for picking a kind of ambitious menu when i knew she was having a tough time at work, & she said “no, cooking with you is relaxing.”

!!!

cooking with other people can really, really suck. too many cooks spoil the broth or whatever & in a lot of situations too many means two or more. cooking with others is its own set of skills—or, to be more specific, two sets of skills. because being good at cooking with others is fundamentally about being comfortable in a hierarchy. being good at leading & being good at being led. my friend felt relaxed even while she worked hard because she didn’t have to make any decisions—a cheaper alternative for high-powered corporate workers than hiring a dominatrix, & you get something to eat at the end

i think that people attempt to co-cook egalitarianly because they aren’t comfortable with like power differentials in either direction & that causes 90% of the complaints that you see about trying to cook with others. it just doesn’t work almost ever. somebody needs to take responsibility for the meal or nobody will be responsible for the meal. & anyone else cooking has to be responsible to the responsible party

sous chef skills

this comes first because this is easier.

obviously you need to bring any general cooking skills, taste, information that you have, with you here. so we won’t go into that too much

communication is the big skill here. i think watching gordon ramsay can help with this. when the chef tells you to do something, you want to make sure they know you heard them. if you’re not sure what they’re telling you to do, you want them to know. if you don’t know how to do something, you want to make sure the chef knows. if you encounter something unexpected, you want to make sure the chef knows. when you are done doing what the chef told you to do last, you want to make sure the chef knows.

you also don’t want to make them order you around TOO much. if you are done with whatever they told you to do last, they know that you’re done, & they don’t have the bandwidth to tell you what to do next, have a default action that doesn’t get in the way. the obvious thing is to clean while you wait—but the better you know your chef & whatever you’re cooking, the more default actions will be available to you. maybe after you’ve made the dish a dozen times you know you can set up the garnish for later, set up & label containers for the predictable leftovers, etc

the other thing is the skill of doing what people tell you. obviously there’s a technical aspect to this, can you literally do the thing they are telling you to do, can you understand what they’re telling you to do. & a lot of times, difficulties that you have doing what you’re told, will be 100% the fault of the person who is telling you what to do. but there is emotional stuff here as well.

obviously a lot of people fear being told what to do because they are afraid of being punished after. & also a lot of people don’t like being told what to do because they feel like it reflects poorly on them. also maybe you just don’t trust the person you are trying to cook with, to tell you what to do, & maybe they aren’t trustworthy!

i think you can tell when the problem holding up your cooking collaboration is emotional, rather than technical, when hearing someone tell you what to do gives you an urge to explain why you aren’t already doing it.

this goes even more for when the chef corrects something you’re doing

this emotional stuff is not really something you can just decide to fix obviously. i do think cooking is a good way to deal with it. because cooking a meal with someone is such a short term, low stakes collaboration & the difference between “this process worked” & “this process didn’t work” is so obvious & visceral

chef skills

again, you need to bring in general cooking skills/taste/information. & it’s more important for the chef to have this stuff than the sous chef. especially the skill of time & effort estimation

you have to be good at discerning what to do yourself vs what to tell other people to do. obviously this depends a lot on your own skills & the skills of the people you’re working with. & it can work for the chef to be much worse/less skilled at cooking than the sous chef(s). but in general, you want to give away the tasks that require the least continuous judgment. for instance, reducing a sauce & judging when it’s thick enough, or scrambling eggs or something, that’s probably for you, because you have to exercise judgment over a period of time. but chopping stuff only requires a single judgment (how big to chop) & then executing that judgment, so that probably goes to others.

you have to be willing to to decide what happens instead of waffling about it. that doesn’t preclude asking other people for their advice & opinions of course

relatedly, you have to be willing to tell people what to do. don’t be all “do you want to chop the garlic?” whoever agreed to cook with you, agreed to cook with you, they don’t have to be asked about every little thing & they would probably prefer not to be

on the other hand, you have to accept the essentially arbitrary nature of your temporary authority. this actually opens up more options for you. you’re not the chef because you’re the best cook, you’re the chef because for whatever logistical reason, it makes sense for you to take responsibility for the final product. you can ask the people cooking with you for their advice & judgment without degrading your authority. & you can decide not to follow their advice or judgment even if you think they are in general more skilled at cooking than you

this isn’t as feudalistic as it sounds

i’m worried i made this sound like the military or something. but the roles are not rigid. it’s easier to chef when you sous chef a lot & vice versa, & it’s easier to sous chef for someone you’ve cheffed for. accepting a hierarchy when cooking makes power/authority feel less salient. power/authority becomes just another tool to help you do what you’re doing instead of something that has to be negotiated. i promise, the more willing that you are to inhabit the chef/souschef roles, the more fluid & effortless that cooking together will feel

1. my toxic trait is that whenever given the opportunity i make someone else chop the garlic/onions. i wanna see you cry