Too Many Cooks

With seven cooks in a modestly-sized kitchen, there are bound to be differences. Two completely different styles of cooking emerged and promptly clashed. The first weekend I worked, an older man (a former fireman) was in charge. He ran the operation just like we were cooking at the firehouse: He gave the orders, and we followed. If he was missing, we sat and waited for him to appear. Some of the experienced female cooks appeared to chafe at this modis operendi, in particular Mrs. Masuda.

Fast forward one week to my second trip to Tono. I arrived at the same shelter, again with the purpose of cooking. But this week there had been a shake-down (shake-up?) in the power structure. The fire chief had been replaced by Mrs. Masuda. Mrs. Masuda was very pleased with the change. "He was always barking out orders," she told me in a confidential voice. "And as it turns out, the residents could hear him through the closed door, and it made them very uncomfortable."

"Oh." I could see where she was coming from, because The Chief was the one who'd insisted on re-grinding my seseme and re-chopping my salad greens. . .

"A woman is better, you know," Mrs. Masuda whispered. "With a man, the residents didn't feel like they could express their opinion. He was always saying, do this! do that! chop this!, chop that! But now that he's gone, the residents are really warming up to us. They come in the kitchen! They give their opinion about the cooking! It's 180 degrees different."

Seeing the situation at the shelter for myself, I couldn't help agreeing. Due to the passage of time, and doubtless to the ousting of The Chief, the atmosphere was much more friendly.

I feel like I learned a lesson from this, but being me, I'm not sure exactly what it is. Perhaps one lesson is that all human activities revolve around human relationships. The Chief was a very capable person who wanted to help, and he did it efficiently. . .and yet, he failed to please.

Next weekend, I'll go to the same refugee center again. Luckily, I'm just a minor cog-- the success or failure of human collaboration at the center doesn't ride on me. My job is to steel myself to play Cops and Robbers-- many more times than I could normally be induced to play!