Culinary Dispatch #12
On choosing joy in the kitchen
In 1931, Irma S. Rombauer published The Joy of Cooking. Since then, it has become one of the most widelysold cookbooks in the U.S., remaining continuously in print since 1936 and selling more than 20 million copies. One of those copies belonged to Julia Child, who called the book “a fundamental resource for any American cook.” She admired Rombauer’s work so deeply that when she began writing her own cookbook over twenty years later, she set out to make Mastering the Art of French Cooking the French cook equivalent for American audiences.
I bring all of this up because I’m almost certain that you all know about Le Cordon Bleu because of our dear Julia Child. She enrolled at the school quite randomly - out of boredom, really - after her husband’s work as a diplomat brought them to France. Paul Child, an enthusiastic gourmand, used the move as an opportunity to introduce Julia to fine food. After her first meal of sole meunière, she was hooked (I mean, who wouldn’t be). From there, Julia went on to become a media sensation who fundamentally reshaped both how Americans understood French cuisine and what it looked like for a woman to take up space in a kitchen.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Julia and this idea of “the joy of cooking.” Julia’s success didn’t come from polish or perfection; it came from her openness (or - in the most endearing way possible - her mess). She made mistakes. She laughed at herself. She was genuine - and honestly, in a way that many of my chefs would probably hate. If you’ve never seen the video of her flipping a potato pancake, you need to go watch it.
Mistakes are essential to learning. More importantly, being able to laugh at them is what keeps you going. Doing something incorrectly doesn’t just teach you how to do it correctly next time; it teaches adaptability, which I’ve always felt is one of the most essential skills in the kitchen. From pop-ups to private catering to family dinners, something has always gone wrong. And maybe this is the performing and visual artist in me, but that unpredictability is part of what makes cooking exciting.
All of this had led me to a personal mission: reclaiming joy in the kitchen. Between slammed pots, muttered curses, and an atmosphere that’s beginning to feel more punitive than productive, it’s easy to lose sight of why we cook in the first place. I don’t mean this as a rejection of school - quite the opposite. I’m refusing to let intensity eclipse pleasure. Instead, I’m choosing to take a page from Julia Child’s approach.
Recently, I listened to an episode of The New Yorker’s Critics at Large on the state of home cooking today. The conversation explored how creativity in the kitchen can exist without becoming burdensome. Helen Rosner, a staff writer at The New Yorker, spoke about the appeal of cookbook authors like Alison Roman and Samin Nosrat, who remind their audiences: “Don’t bleed for your loved ones, just feed them.” Feeding people, she argued, can live at the intersection of aspiration and approachability. That’s where food feels most alive - and I couldn’t agree more.
I’m aware that what I’m doing at LCB is very different from contemporary social media-driven home cooking. What I’m “training for” is more professional by nature. Still, I have a hard time believing that professionalism requires the absence of joy. Using more saucepans and tweezers shouldn’t mean stress has to seep into every corner of the process. I can mount a beurre blanc while smiling. In fact, it has only ever split when I wasn’t.
So this is my official declaration: I’m choosing joy in the kitchen. The shouts of “allez, allez” won’t get to me. My mistakes aren’t failures; they’re information. I’ll adapt rather than give up. And, most importantly, I’ll aim to find as much laughter at the stove as possible.
That laughter begins with what I’ve called “Frankenstein à la Cuisine Française” - dishes that combine more than one animal protein into a single, slightly absurd creation, allegedly better than its individual parts. The school loves the principles behind something like a turduken. And quite frankly, I find that deeply funny.
