When I first started cooking, my biggest fear about the whole situation was, simply, fucking it all up. Completely reasonable, right? At the bare minimum, if you completely screw the pooch while making a meal, that means you're out of the game for the night. Now you gotta order delivery, deal with crackers, or bust out that box o' mac that you've been saving for an IDGAF day. This is completely fair and reasonable. Nobody wants to spend even 30 minutes making a meal that should come out great, only to find that it is an absolute, abject, horrible mess. Taking that first bite only to discover, to your great horror, that it's like biting into an ashtray, a salt lick, or the pure juice of a peak-freshness Carolina Reaper is not only a shock to the system but a real hit to the ego.

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It's important to remember, though, that we all learn from our mistakes. In fact, some of our most hailed cooking methods to date were discovered by accident! Perfection, learning, and innovation, all come from trial and error - whether this means you've followed a recipe to a T only to discover you hated it, or weren't paying attention and added a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon, you've learned something and will be able to take a valuable lesson away from it. Cooking is an art as much as it is a science, and all great artists and scientists have their failures. This doesn't mean that they will never cure an infectious disease or sculpt that masterpiece that will be studied for centuries to come. Quite the contrary, in fact! This new data can provide valuable insight to one day reach their peak.

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Personal storytime!

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I have failed - and continue to do so - frequently in the kitchen. Less than a year before writing this, shortly after moving into a new apartment and finally getting my kitchen unpacked, I was so very very excited to finally have a home-cooked meal again. All day, I was just itching to get back into the kitchen and make myself a nice, hearty serving of shakshuka. That morning I'd planned ahead and started soaking the chickpeas so they'd be ready when I returned from work; my mouth started watering the second I got home and began the long boil; I was so enthusiastic while preheating the oven, cooking the onions, preparing the tomatoes, and letting everything simmer to perfection. I pulled that bad boy skillet out of the oven, cut my bread, and sat down to feast. So excited! So enthusiastic! So ready to be contented by my warm, savory meal! I took my first bite and... I could've sworn my entire head was on fire. My eyes burned, my lips went numb, I immediately began to worry that my weak, asthmatic lungs were going to shut straight the hell down. "What in the name of... what happened?!" I had followed my recipe perfectly! I'd made this meal dozens of times before! Never before had food brought me such agony! Through tears and fits of coughing, I desperately Googled "how to tone down spicy food" and was met with dozens if not hundreds of suggestions, many out of my reach. I had no real milk on hand, I was already past the point of adding more ingredients to dilute the pain, I didn't have any acids in the kitchen. So, I took the only course of action I could and, between desperate puffs on my inhaler, loaded the damn thing up with as much agave sweetener as I could. I had exactly zero other options at that point in time. Fresh in my new home, I had no backup foods; fresh off of a New York City move, I didn't have extra cash to order out; this was my first cooking foray in weeks and had no leftovers, nary even a pretzel to keep me fed overnight. If I didn't want to go to bed hungry and wake up the next morning ill from an empty stomach, I had to power through this sickly sweet, agonizingly painful amalgamation of tomatoes, onions, chickpeas, and pulmonary assault. To make it all worse, in my later quest to figure out what the hell went wrong, I discovered that the cayenne pepper I'd purchased from a local co-op was some kind of mutant that rated at around 120,000 on the Scoville scale. For reference, the spice typically rates between 30,000 and 50,000 Scoville heat units, so the normal tablespoon that I would add had escalated from "pleasantly piquant" to "thank god you have health insurance because ambulance rides are expensive." I didn't mess up in the kitchen, oh no, I messed up so long before that!

 

Even from this, though, I learned a lot of things. First, I have a very specific and very defined threshold, and it appears to rest way the fuck below 120,000 SHU. Second, pay attention. Had I read the label on the spice I would have noticed something was up when the SHU was defined. Third, and, unfortunately, I learned this in subsequent cooking experiments, 120,000 SHU goes a loooooooooong way, even when you only use a small amount. Fourth, and maybe most importantly, always have citrus fruit on hand to cut through this kind of mistake.

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I'll admit, after this experience, I shied away not only from shakshuka but from anything utilizing cayenne pepper for some time, but after a break, I jumped back in with both feet. Not everything turned out amazing, but I did eventually figure out the basic conversion between normal cayenne pepper and this hell spice I have been cursed with. It's a small lesson and one with which I will eventually be able to do very little, but it was an experience from which I gained knowledge and embracing it (after finding my breath) has, in fact, made me a better cook - whether following someone else's recipe or creating my own.

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Important Conclusion

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It goes without saying that this lesson isn't only applicable in the kitchen. Most of us regularly face failure but instead of accepting defeat we embrace our tenacity and give it another go. That is to say that when - not if - you fail in the kitchen, it is ever so necessary to take that experience, clean off the dishes, shake your head, and fold everything into your personal skillset. Don't think of it as a failure - think of it as an experience that you'd rather not repeat. Like seeing a bad movie or stubbing your toe. Sure, they're all the consequences of your own actions, but that doesn't mean you're necessarily to blame. Just be sure that you examine it, remember it, write it down, and take care to never fucking do it again.