Once you make cleaning part of your cooking process, you’ll find
it difficult to do it any other way.
10 Remember, everyone makes mistakes.
On the subject of chefs being fallible, there were many times when
a chef would mess up. Elizabeth Falkner, for example, was so
engrossed in talking to me (I’m very engrossing!) while candying
her bacon for a puntarelle and candied bacon salad that at one
point I interrupted our conversation to ask: “Is that pan supposed
to be on fire?” We had a good laugh about it, and the remarkable
thing is how quickly she recovered. The fiery pan went in the sink,
a new pan went on the stove, and just a few minutes later we had a
beautiful pan of candied bacon ready to go. The lesson is: no one
cares if you mess up in the kitchen; it’s how you recover that
matters most.
