My friend Catherine stumbled upon this quote in a friend’s blog and, thinking I might appreciate it, sent it along. The quote is from “The World According to Garp” by John Irving, which I haven’t read but maybe should.
“If you are careful,’ Garp wrote, ‘if you use good ingredients, and you don’t take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.”
I have often thought that my cooking was a kind of therapeutic release from the strains of being a sceenwriter, because when I cook I feel more in control and can see results quickly (unlike TV work, which is a long, drawn-out process, with many different cooks, and one is never sure who, in the end, is getting the final kick out of it, if anyone.)