I’ve got my eye on that

It is no secret that our bodies start to, er, decline as we age. One of the (oh so many) areas that is impacted is eyesight. I remember being so proud at 50 when I still didn’t need readers. Well, that didn’t last long. Now at each eye appointment I’m asking for more and stronger “close vision” in my contact lenses, but I want to get that without degrading my distance vision. So far, that means that I have corrected one eye for distance and one eye for close reading (although not close enough, as I’m still wearing readers…hence my previous post about how I leave those all over the house). But when I have to read music this combination still doesn’t work, so I have a “cello contact lens” that I try to remember to switch out for the distance one in my right eye before going to rehearsal. Which I usually don’t remember to do, so then I spend much of my evening squinting and leaning forward at odd angles and praying that I’m playing the correct notes.

But none of that is the point of today’s rant/blog, it’s just background information. The point is, I’m not the only person who has the issue of eyesight fading with age, so why don’t the folks who make kitchen supplies make them legible? Good grief. I have multiple sets of measuring spoons and cups that have the amount written on them in the same color as the item itself. Who can read that? Even younger folks have difficulty–I know, because often I will make whomever else is in or near the kitchen come check (and that’s usually one of my sons). Does that say “1 Tbs” or “1/2 Tbs?” Is that “1/2 tsp” or “1/4 tsp?” I can’t read if this is “1/3 cup” or “1/4 cup!” Who makes that decision at the manufacturing firm? Does it save so much money to print it in the same color ink as the plastic used that they don’t consider whether it’s legible? If no one is around to help I find myself standing near the window, rotating the spoon or cup trying to get light to shine off of it in a way that I can tell what it says. What a waste of time.

As I ruminate on this irritation, I consider a deeper question, which is: why don’t I trust myself more in the kitchen? I’ve been cooking for (ahem) many years now. I know how much a half teaspoon is. To prove that, I often pour that amount of salt into my hand before adding it to a dish…then I scoop it into a 1/2 teaspoon measure (yep! right again!) before dumping it into the pot. If I know that, I probably can figure out other amounts. It’s just kitchen math. I even know the number of teaspoons in a tablespoon! And yet, unless I’m making Italian meatballs or red sauce (during which process I measure nothing because my mother-in-law measured nothing and that’s how I learned), I insist on measuring things out. Does that send some sort of deep-seated message about my psyche? Am I that obsessed with perfection that I’m afraid to add a little too much or not quite enough of something? Perhaps I am not willing to take the chance that my meal will be less than perfect if I don’t measure ingredients precisely.

That is not to say that I don’t screw things up from time to time, no matter how careful I am in the preparation. Like the time that I forgot to turn on the crock pot so we came home to raw meat for dinner. Or the time I put potatoes in the oven to bake in advance then went to a movie with my kids and came home to a hot oven and a bunch of little brick bats. (See previous posts if you are interested in the phrase “brick bat.”) But I think I should loosen up a bit in the kitchen and trust myself a more. Stop overthinking everything. I know what size that measuring cup is, even without reading the impossibly light print. I am going to stop wasting time trying to figure out how big the spoon is and just toss in some seasoning. If it’s too much or too little, I’ll figure that out, and fix it the next time. After all, as Julia Child said, “Cooking is one failure after another, and that’s how you finally learn.” And that’s better than wasting time squinting at the utensils.