Others might use having just one hand as an excuse not to cook; he sees it as a challenge that’s sometimes frustrating, but one that can be met with humor and overcome with deep satisfaction. “Some people say the kitchen is where they clear their heads; for me, it’s where I face my demons,” he says.
Goode calls his short arm “perhaps the best of the worst” sort of handicap, and hasn’t let it keep him from doing much. He played sports (including baseball) as a child, tied his shoes, says he never missed having a right arm, and thought it wouldn’t interfere with anything he wanted to do for a living.
That was before he decided to become a food writer, and realized that “any self-respecting food writer should know how to cook, even if it’s just for the street cred.” Because he’d easily managed most everything else in life one-handed, he thought cooking would be no different until he discovered two large stumbling blocks: “wielding sharp instruments and hauling pots of boiling water.”
I more or less gave up after a few lame attempts at food prep, especially after Peter got home. Goode, however, plunges into and masters recipes that call for vegetables to be cut into precise cubes or meat into thin matching strips, though it takes him much longer than the average cook. Preparation for the braised chicken meal he describes in his Gourmet piece includes him cutting a whole chicken into pieces and dicing celery, onion, and carrot into “precise little cubes.”
Goode’s efforts haven’t just given him personal satisfaction: he’s been equally successful in his food writing career, publishing articles in several national publications. Most chefs work with a professional writer when they publish a cookbook; Goode’s collaboration with chef Adam Perry Lang, Serious Barbeque, made it to the New York Times bestseller list. Lang calls Goode “…a true master; probably the most talented food writer I know.”
As for me, my arm is slowly improving and I’m beginning to cook more. It’ll be a while, though, until I’m at Goode’s level. When his dinner guests praise his braised chicken with those precisely cut vegetables, he tells them, “Thanks, it was nothing.” But I know better.
Contact Julianne Glatz at [email protected].
