My friend Ben taught me how to hold my nerve in the kitchen. He has this instinct where he knows when something is cooked.
He can stop whatever else he is doing in another room and come in and yoink it out of the oven just the right moment. Without setting a timer, or even really giving it too much thought at all really.
One afternoon at his and Anneliese's place in London earlier this year, I decided to make focaccia to go with the soup I'd made for that night's dinner.
I’d never made it before. It felt like something I really wanted to be good at.
Flour, oil, salt and yeast.
How hard could it be? Not very. It turns out, I just needed a tutorial in holding my nerve.
The dough was everything I had hoped for. Gratifyingly puffy and doused in olive oil, it looked exactly how I wanted it to going into the oven. The rosemary was giving the entire apartment big herb vibes.
But the actual cooking of the dough? I had not chill at all about this process.
I was sure I was going to over cook it. Burn it to a crisp. For a full 28 minutes, being a nervous baker became my full time job.
And the oven light didn’t work. So I was reduced to kneeling on the floor and pressing my face up as close to the glass as the heat would allow, ready to open the door every five seconds like a maniac.
When Ben saw me hunched over the oven, my knuckles were turning white on the hand I had gripped on the oven door, ready to swing it open.
I tried to laugh it off.
He didn’t laugh. Just came up beside me and asked me what was gong on, so I explained. And he matter of factly said, “Oh, You’ve got to learn how to hold your nerve.”
And this was the perfect lesson. That next 4 minutes felt like forever. And every time I thought I might break, I glanced over at Ben, and he just shook his head and said, “hoooooooold it”.
When he finally shrugged as if to say, if it’s not cooked now, it will be very soon, but I can no longer play this charade with you.
And when I pulled the focaccia out, it was golden. It’s edges were crisp. A total triumph.
This moment is one of my favourite memories from my recent travels, I loved learning how to hold my nerve in that kitchen in Bermondsey so much!
The lesson: sometimes the best thing you can do is wait. Hold your nerve. And then hold it some more.
Looking back, I could have probably also left the foccacia in another minute.
