WHY WE COOK.
Five years ago today the world lost a great talent, a great mind, and a great heart in the passing of musician Amy Winehouse at the age of 27. Just this last year the movie Amy, which tells her story, won the Oscar for best documentary. Amy is a very good film. If you have the chance to watch it this weekend please do. It’s available through Amazon Prime, or can be rented/purchased through iTunes or Amazon, and is well worth the cost. You can check out the official trailer here on YouTube.
As Penzeys pivots from just trying to preserve what’s left of cooking to restoring cooking to the place we all need it to be, the first step is to get people to see the value in cooking. Part of that is me regularly quoting the stats about how all the good things in life happen 25% more, and the bad things happen 25% less, when people cook and share meals together. Equally important is for you to look around and open your eyes to all the good you set in motion by being a person kind enough to cook. You really should feel proud of what you do.
But to truly see the value in cooking we can’t just focus on statistics and positive outcomes. Now and again we need an honest, up-close look at what happens when someone in need of the constant love at the heart of cooking goes without. In some ways I feel Amy Winehouse is our time’s Anne Frank. Her story is something we all need to see. And even though it is sad, heartbreaking even, somehow through her sprit, and her talent, and just by who she is, her story becomes uplifting—inspirational even.
And as long as I’m putting demands on your weekend, if you end up watching Amy, can you keep an eye on your feelings as you are watching it? As you witness her life unfold, don’t be surprised to find that the very same part of you that makes you cook has you reaching out towards the screen to try to find some way to give her the love she so clearly needed. All too often these days, cooks dismiss what they do as nothing special, when in reality what cooks do is pretty much the only thing keeping this world together. Cooking matters.
In the film, Tony Bennett has a great quote: “If you live long enough, life teaches you how to live.” Cooks know how to live. We need to start sharing that with the world. Let’s not lose any more Amys. Thanks for being a cook.
