Recently, I was standing at the stove, arranging some dinner of considerable effort in the cast
iron skillet, and I realized that I am never depressed when I am cooking. My husband once remarked
that I am at my happiest when I am cooking something. I like the transformation. I like reading recipes
and imagining how they are going to turn out. I like undertaking new and difficult recipes, or buying a
cookbook from a restaurant and recreating at home. I like the physical nature of the work, and feeling
the sense of exhaustion when I sit down, and also, the sense of completion.

Cooks Illustrated closely aligns with my sensibilities. Take a recipe and turn it this way and that,
experimenting endlessly, until absolute perfection is attained. I think that you can actually attain
perfection in cooking, unlike other areas of life. And the appreciation that you receive from others whom
you cook for is simple and untinged by envy or blame, or any of the other baser human emotions that
can color other successes.

Cooking has changed since having children, though. First of all, I always have helpers, like it or
not. I am happy that they are interested in cooking, but wish I could occasionally cook something now
standing directly in front of it, instead of reaching in from the side. My four year old son will help me
cook anything and will stay in the kitchen, standing on a chair, from start to finish. He has a sensory
disorder, and is fascinated by boiling water, sizzling oil. He watches them as intently as fireworks. He
sees something in these things that others do not. He is also completely fascinated by eggs, and if I
have them out, will always try and nab a few and take them to some corner of the house, where he can
“hatch” them.

Some of my best memories from childhood are helping my mother cook and bake. I was
kneading dough the other day, and heard my mother’s voice describing the proper way to handle it,
firmly but gently, like a baby, she said. Which I didn’t think to ask until I grew up, did she roll myself and
my brothers about on the countertops when we were infants? I remember the tea rings we made every
Christmas, with their nuts and raisins swathed in cinnamon peeking through from between the folds of
dough. And the sweet white icing. I remember shucking corn, and snapping beans into a colander with
the table covered in newspaper. I remember fetching the rock salt from the basement for my dad, so he
could use it in the ice cream churn with all the kids gathered around in the driveway.

I always wonder what my kids will remember of my cooking when they grow up. I rarely make
the same recipe twice, cooking being one of those few areas of life that you are free to change as often
as you like without causing harm to yourself or others. I rarely make desserts, and cookies only at
Christmas. It doesn’t seem like you can really script what they will remember, and it will probably be the
time I put 2 cups of salt in a cheesecake I was making, instead of sugar (talking on the phone and
unmarked bins). Or the cheesecake removed too soon from the refrigerator and unmolded, only to melt
like a wax sculpture exposed to direct sunlight. So, despite my rare culinary disasters and the
preponderance of successes, they will probably remember that I did awful things to cheesecakes when
they were small.