So, I was talking to my sister Beulah the other day, and the subject of these kitchen chronicles happened to come up. Well, I found myself trying to explain what was going on here – is it humor, or is it cooking, or just what? Because, according to some people out there who seem to like their rice white and their coffee black, it can’t be both.

Well as you’ve probably guessed by now, I have my own thoughts on that. See, in my opinion, food without any humor never quite hits the spot. I think humor should be considered a culinary mainstay in anybody’s kitchen – not just mine. Sniff around a bit and you’ll find that the best cooks are masters of laughter, and most of them wouldn’t be caught dead without a big pot of humor simmering away on a back burner.

Take, for example, my hero Julia Child. In her esteemed opinion,

The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken. Bon appétit.

See what I mean! That sort of irreverence was the secret ingredient in Julia’s success as a writer, as a person, and as a cook. No, The French Chef didn’t shy away from wit one bit, and you can bet that her guests walked away positively tipsy from the handfuls of humor she’d thrown in.*

Yes, cooking is a serious business, and being short on humor is NOT the kind of poverty you can afford. In fact, humor is sometimes the only thing that can salvage a real wreck of a situation.

Take, for example, the day the fudge frosting you’ve been slaving over for the last 20 minutes refuses to set up. Well, ever the impatient optimist, Miss Haste E. May is not about to be deterred by such a minor setback as semi-liquid frosting, and she rashly decides to slather it on anyway.

But as the warm, runny frosting meets room-temperature, freshly-baked cake, said cake begins to crack, eventually splitting clean down the middle like a calving iceberg with one half heeling over to starboard like a sinking ship. Finding itself freed from the horizontal aspect, the aforementioned frosting naturally takes this opportunity to slide slyly over the edge of the plate onto the counter where it forms an oozing rivulet heading straight for the nearest edge. Over it goes, like a thick, molten tongue of chocolate lava, down the front of the cabinets you just cleaned yesterday, onto the floor that you just mopped last month, where it finally comes to rest – yes, finally decides to set up – in one of those waiting drifts of cat hair that tend to build up at the baseboards. (And don’t pretend that you don’t have those, because I happen to know that you do.)

Now before you ask, the answer is, yes – this actually happened to me. And did I somehow manage to resurrect this unholy mess from its state of utter ruination? Did I recover my wits and my frosting in time for dinner at eight? Did I miraculously succeed in transforming my kitchen catastrophe into an elegant masterpiece that I graciously served to astonished guests after a five-course meal, like some sort of culinary superhero dressed in pearls and an invisible chef’s cape??

HELL no. I threw that sucker in the trash where it belonged. It was good for a laugh, but that’s about it. The point I’m getting at here is that without humor, that cake – along with its evil counterpart, the frosting – would not have been good for anything at all.

Yes, humor may be invisible to see, but you sure can tell when it’s missing. It’s the antidote to dullness and fatigue and bland living – the REAL spice of life. Get some and use it with abandon. You’ll be able to taste the difference.

* Of course, the half-bottle of sherry might have had something to do with it.

Read Full Post »