Back, Jack, Do it Again

So, today is National Election Day here in Israel, the fourth time in two years. Numerous bon mots and cliches come to mind, perhaps the most obvious one being the quote attributed to Einstein: Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Or, the old Dylan lines: OH momma, can this really be the end; To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again.

But stuck here in my soul food kitchen, thinking about various aspects of repetition, I’m perhaps perversely inclined to strike a more optimistic note. The chef and writer Michael Ruhlman. In the epilogue to his book Twenty, notes: “Why are chefs so good? They’re good not because they’re more gifted than you are, but because they’ve prepared their dishes over and over.” He uses this simple insight to encourage his readers to make the same dishes over and over, going deep rather than broad. The result will be improvement.

He’s right, of course. At least when it comes to food. And while it’s hard at least for me, with the attention span of a gnat, to stay laser focused on a few dishes again and again, I know that my bbq brisket, after tons of iterations, is now better than it was originally. I know now that while my guests loved my cajun shrimp dish two years ago, that dish is infinitely better now that I poach the shrimp in a beurre monte sauce. And I know that a new dish just coming out of our test kitchen is going to take time before it really matures as a bona fide item on our menu.

So maybe something of the same logic could be applied to the otherwise ridiculous elections before us today? Another iteration in an imperfect effort to eventually create something palatable?