I am not a chef. Not even a cook. I fall into the category of people who scrounge together meals, occasionally and eagerly resorting to Lower Live. I treat cooking as a necessary but unfortunate chore. No one is to blame but myself. I have three much younger siblings who still need their food prepared, so when I am home, there’s usually a steady supply of delicious food. At school, I have relied heavily on Trader Joe’s frozen meals, chicken, and cereal—the diet of champions. 

I would like to find enjoyment in cooking and recognize how important it is for my health, but one thing always stops me from experimenting in the kitchen: embarrassment. I have wonderful roommates who would laugh only an appropriate amount if I tried something new or set off the fire alarm using the Mod oven. Still, cooking feels like an important, practical skill I should have tackled earlier—like learning to ride a bike or how to write—which becomes more personal with time. 

So, when I joined two of my roommates for a Wednesday night session of BC’s Cooking Club last semester, I did so with a sense of trepidation. We climbed a narrow set of stairs and rounded a corner to find ourselves face-to-face with a towering rack of pots, pans, and knives jutting out in every direction. The clatter of activity and cheerful voices directed our attention to the left side of the room. I said hello to a friend, and she informed us that we would be making breakfast for dinner. One group would take on French omelets and another would be on pancake duty.

We walked through a doorway and settled at a large square table, surrounded by several skillets and more eggs than I’d ever seen in one kitchen. I turned on my burner and started following the demonstration by a Cooking Club member, feeling somewhat confident I could at least make a decent omelet.

But less than a minute had passed before my hopes were dashed. I realized the heat had been a little too high, and instead of a smooth, delicate layer of eggs like the instructor’s, mine were already halfway to scrambled. The instructor looked over and said, “Yeah, you don’t have to eat those.”

Humiliated, I ate my plate of scrambled eggs in record time, trying to avoid looking too longingly at the perfect omelets taking shape around me. 

I walked into the next room, hoping to redeem myself, and will spare you the details of what happened next. All you need to know is that I slapped an enormous lump of pancake batter onto the industrial stove at low heat, then flipped it way too soon. I ended up with a jumbled dumpster fire of chocolate chips, butter, and batter—the complete opposite of a redemption arc. 

When I was spotted trying to pass off my barely-recognizable pancakes as edible, I became a lightning rod of tension and discomfort. I threw away what was left of the mess I couldn’t stomach, cracked a joke about dysfunctional kitchenware, became a diligent cleaner, and quickly made my excuses to leave. 

My roommates, on the other hand, had a great time and were laughing about their full stomachs. I told them how embarrassed I was, explaining that I can make both pancakes and eggs. I didn’t know how to prove that I was not totally useless (which was how I felt), and explain why I was so uncomfortable. But I tried, and one of them said, “You find the weirdest things embarrassing, and then sometimes do stuff I would never do.” 

I have no problem stopping someone and asking for a picture with them or telling a guy he’s attractive, only to find out he’s younger than me and he has a girlfriend. I love starting a risky round of hot seat, public speaking, or singing in front of a large group of people. There are countless situations where I am willingly vulnerable in front of other people, like writing this column. When it came to cooking, though, I felt a different kind of embarrassment —I didn’t think it was supposed to be vulnerable. To me, it is a universal life skill that any legal adult should have mastered. And because I lacked that skill, I felt inexperienced and inadequate. 

But since this incident, I’ve learned the following lessons about embarrassment, which may apply to you somehow:

1. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. 
2. Some people never learn to cook well, while others do so out of necessity and may never actually enjoy it. 
3. I am young. It is not too late to learn. 
4. I constantly try to be better, but sometimes we get stuck in ways we don’t even notice.
5. It is time to get in the kitchen and just try. 
6. Embarrassment is temporary, but its rewards are often not. 
7. You should never impose embarrassment on yourself or let other people make you feel unnecessarily embarrassed. In this case, I was the only one imposing judgment on myself. You have control over what you let affect you and how you internalize and react to situations. 
8. We all experience embarrassment in different ways. My roommate told me she admired the bold way I approach some situations that she would find difficult, and to her, cooking is something simple that anyone can learn. 
9. The grass is always greener on the other side. For me, knowing my way around a kitchen would feel like the perfectly manicured green lawns of the Quad, but for other people, the things I’m not afraid to try might look just as appealing.
10. Yes, it’s an occupational hazard of being alive, but a lot of the things that make life worth living—eating great food, exercising,  making friends, finding love, creating art—require a little embarrassment.

If we embarrass ourselves a little more often, we might find the answers. At the very least, we’ll have some good stories to tell. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]