I had no
idea that flipping eggs was such a seriously difficult thing to do. Our third daughter, Tired of Being Youngest, is in culinary
school, and this quarter's project involves creating egg dishes of all sorts,
with a major emphasis on being able to flip the egg product, spatula free, by
synergizing one's wrist movement with the frying pan.
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It's one thing dropping fabric from a basket all over the
beach;
but spattering eggs on the floor is a bit messier. But that's what
learning involves -- making mistakes, messing up, and dropping
eggs. Brimming Over by
Steve Henderson.
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To this end, Tired of Being Youngest practices with a piece
of bread in the frying pan, the latter which she sets on the kitchen counter
and picks up every time she walks by.
Flip. Flip. Flip.
I hear this throughout the day and one time, surreptitiously
when no one was looking, I picked up the pan and gave a flick of the wrist
myself. Thank God there wasn't a real egg in there.
Okay, so maybe you don't eat eggs, and if you do, you're
fine using the spatula -- I really only like my eggs scrambled, after all (TOBY
is incensed with me -- "Who's going to eat my practice projects?" she asks).
But the point of today's article has less to do with culinary techniques as it
has to do with the concept of practicing:
To get good at anything, from flipping eggs to perfecting oil painting techniques to creating complete artworks, takes practice, practice, and
practice, and sometimes, that practice doesn't involve real eggs, but a slice
of bread.
Translation: paint a lot, but not necessarily with the idea
of selling everything you paint. Some of those works are practice pieces, and when
you look at the finished product, you feel that you have literally splattered
eggs about. But you keep at it -- flipping, flipping, flipping -- and you get
better and better, until one day -- that fried egg goes soaring into the air, gracefully
pirouettes, and lands, cleanly, in the middle of the pan.
--Carolyn