A sizzle made me glance up from Sunrise on the Reaping. When I spotted the stove, I panicked. The pot glowed like magma, and all the water had evaporated. I turned off the fire and poured in the nearest glass of water to a large cloud of condensation. It was too late, though. My sense of self-sufficiency disappeared. All I had left was a scorched pot, fumes, and a bundle of charred spaghetti. My stomach chastised me.
Four days later, I sat with five classmates in the chemistry lab, preparing to synthesize gold nanoparticles in our first experiment. Chemistry was my favorite subject, the science that could integrate complex theory and hands-on experiment flawlessly. My partner, Benny, prepared a stabilizing solution for the nanoparticles while I poured 228 microliters of Auric acid and 57 milliliters of water into a flask, intent on getting the exact amount. Once I connected the flask to a condenser, I began to boil the solution. As our teacher approached to inspect our experiments, I looked at the yellow solution, the boiling, and condensation apparatus, believing that my precision made it immaculate. After an initial nod, though, our teacher did a double-take.
“Why isn’t your condenser on? All of the water will boil away!”
It definitely killed the vibe. Our teacher scrambled to connect the condenser to a tube of water to prevent evaporation, but the damage had been done. Panicked but unable to do anything except pray for success, I felt dejected at the failed experiment. By the end of the experiment, our classmates’ solutions were a vivacious red, while ours looked like a neglected pile of brown sludge.
Then it hit me. Chemistry or cooking, they were both parallel processes. Both involved delicate planning of an intricate procedure, careful mixing of materials, and hands-on skill. (And, ideally, an understanding of the science at play!) My inability to do these tasks swirled around in my brain. I was tempted to let Benny handle every lab for the rest of the year, just as I had abdicated all responsibility to my parents for meals.
But I love experiments. The moment when a set of ordinary chemicals turns into a lustrous crystal or a vibrant fluid is a happy one for me, yet cooking, though, never inspired that feeling. In the kitchen, the eggs, the rice, and the soups were just food, boring. I had convinced myself that a packet of nutrients like those astronaut meals was a better investment than an hour of my time spent preparing food.
I never saw meals-in-progress for what they are: matter in the midst of change.
A week later, I placed a flask of an unknown gas into a boiling beaker of water. I felt wary of having to do another experiment, but I had no other choice. Having learned my lesson, I focused on the overall procedure to make sure I didn’t commit another major chemistry sin. As the beaker cooled, I felt a small flicker of hope. Maybe our yield would match the ideal result. I held my breath as I calculated our yield, which would never be perfect, but that never prevented me from striving for it. I wanted to be perfect, to prove that I had more knowledge and skills than my peers, and this was the time to show it. I looked at the result, then I put down my pencil.
Two hundred fifty percent error. Nearly triple the actual value. We’re more than twice as wrong as we could have been. Frankly, it’s almost an achievement.
It’s also a lesson. It was never the chemical product that enamored me in chemistry. It’s the process itself. The meticulous steps taken to conduct a reaction were well thought out and required a full understanding of the entire process. This type of thinking is what I truly enjoyed. With that insight in hand, my ease in the lab grew. Understanding the how and why of each step of the procedure — rather than fretting about the result — caused me to make fewer mistakes. My copper solutions became an electric blue, waiting to be mixed.
“Allen, come help,” my mother called to me. It was evening, and she was getting the udon noodles ready.
Initially frustrated at having to spend my time cooking food instead of studying, I was not too enthusiastic. As I fill the pot, however, my lab instincts kick in. I stop the water at a third of the volume, an action reminiscent of prepping graduated cylinders with hydrochloric acid. The wait for a rolling boil matches the timing of a standard water bath, leaving me to measure the amount of beef with clinical exactness.
Now I make wontons, Pyongyang cold noodles, and of course, pasta, with chem lab lessons in mind at each step. The yield is getting closer to perfect. I no longer fear making mistakes in cooking and chemistry, and use these mistakes to learn and grow. The food I make may not be flawless, but it’s always tasty.