While cooking dinner together my daughter pulled some dorado from the oven and placed the baking dish on the stove.
As she moved to another task, I placed a kitchen towel along the edges of the dish.
“Dad,” she exclaimed, not wanting me to interfere, “what are you doing?”
She’s my daughter and I’ve raised her to be tough, making a point of not rescuing her from every potential harm in the world (after all I want her to live in that world).
Knowingly allowing her to get burned is another matter, however.
“How many times,” I asked, “have you been burned?”
The question hung in the air like the inviting aroma of the meal she was creating.
Small traumas
Over more than 30 years I’ve cooked in many professional kitchens and at home. I’ve been burned and cut many times.
The french fry basket I pulled from the deep fryer dripping grease that spilled onto my arm, the dull knife that made me struggle for each cut until the knife slipped, the sautée pan in the broiler that I hastily grabbed with a bare hand.
Each is perhaps a failure—of understanding, judgment and prep.
But in that is value.
Each failure made me better—each has taught me.
My daughter will make mistakes. That’s unavoidable.
We can spend our whole lives judging ourselves for our mistakes—or we can embrace those we’ve made, recognizing that every pathway to success demands them.