The comfort of repetition

I recently listened to an episode of the Sporkful podcast entitled “Is your recipe lying to you?” I enjoyed the podcast, the conversation with Chris Kimball was hilarious, but I was caught by something the Elizabeth Dunn said towards the end.

It’s actually an incredibly pleasing and gratifying feeling, cooking things repeatedly and honing them. I don’t know, there’s something very comforting to me about cooking a dish over and over again and having it be part of my repitoire and I think we’re, sort of, actively discouraged from cooking that way now, because of the focus on novelty.

This hit me, because I do most of the cooking in our house, I do read a lot of recipes and I get the NY Times cooking newsletter. I try new recipes fairly regularly. That being said, I’ve started to file recipes away into a folder called “Keepers” and I’ve cooked many of them repeatedly, some of which I don’t even need the recipe any more.

It’s also, as the host said when setting up the above comments, the way my mom cooked. How did I get to have those favorite dishes that my mom cooked me over and over again in my childhood? It was by my mom repeating things. It’s also why I and so many of my cousins missed certain dishes my grandma made in her lifetime, because she made them regularly.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that right now, especially right now, I’ve been wanting to fall back on the comforts of things I know. I’m sewing patterns for a second or third time. I’m knitting patterns I’ve already knit. My plans for sewing and knitting aren’t exclusively things I’ve already made, but I’m sprinkling in repeats to give myself a break and allow myself some easy meditative makes. Just as I do when thinking about a meal plan, I sprinkle in some easy recipes I’ve made repeatedly to give myself a break.

As things in the world and in the US become more chaotic and difficult and I need to take myself away from news, I’m returning to things that I enjoy and that bring me comfort. This translates in so many different ways, my making and cooking as well as what I watch and read.