Perfection is overrated.  I tell my child this all the time.  I’d rather have them seek to find beauty in being human than seek perfection.  Perfection is a set up for failure.

But I think we look at food and want perfection.  The perfect crust, the perfect seasoning, the perfect sweetness, the perfect touch.  But what happens if my perfect is different from your perfect?  Is this a set up for failure? And is it possible for a human to make the same french fry each and every time?  McDonalds has a damn good french fry (I admit, it’s tasty) but it moves through the cooking process without being touched by human hands.  The potatoes are harvested by mega machines on mega monoculture farms.  It gets pushed, pulled, pulverized, extruded, and shaped by machine.  Dipped into chemicals made in a lab, packaged, shipped, and fried.

Summer corn for human consumption as corn not as high fructose corn syrup

Can we readjust our view on food and seek to find beauty with food crafted by humans instead of looking for the same-same food churned out by machines?

On Mother’s Day I was served a beautiful breakfast in bed.  My children designed the menu, shopped for the food and put love into the preparation of eggs with veggies, toast, potatoes and a fruit smoothie.  It was hands down, the best breakfast I have ever eaten.  When Peter and I were first dating, I remember having one of those “I should have never gotten out of bed and I’m laying my head on the desk and wake me when it’s over” types of work days and Peter told me to come by for dinner.  When I arrived he served my grilled Salmon and veggies picked from his backyard.  Give that man 10 stars!

I’m not a new-agey type but I truly believe that food prepared by someone who is thinking about you when they’re making it tastes better.  My mother would say that love is being passed through the food.  Maybe it’s true.  When my kids or my husband makes me a meal or when a meal is prepared by someone who loves food, it tastes different.  It just does.

But with food made by humans there are imperfections.  For those of us making the food, we don’t like to see it or hear it, but there is.  When it’s hot outside it’s really hard to keep the crust dough cold.  The sweetness from case of tomatoes we get from the local farmer varies because of the weather and we have to readjust our what we add to the filling.  Cooking and baking by hand using real ingredients is mysterious and that is a beautiful thing.