Rome wasn't built in a day

Home after a long day at work I sip my wine and think how different my life would be if I were wired to be just a little more patient. I am always hurrying after something and as of late my impatience rests with not knowing enough about food and wanting to learn everything in as little time as possible.

Ideally, I would like every day in the kitchen to be a learning experience. I want to learn about sauces, about oysters, about foie gras. I want to learn what it takes to create such food that it would make someone's breath catch in their throat at the sight and smell and taste of it. I want to make food that causes one to involuntarily close their eyes in order to better savour it and, why not, maybe even moan.

Back to reality though. Today I spent the first couple of hours making a large quantity of tuna salad that I later turned into a multitude of tuna salad sandwiches. With each sandwich I make and wrap I think to myself "I've got to find another kitchen, I need to get more out of my apprenticeship. Is this why I quit my job as insurance adjuster? To make tuna sandwiches?" After the tuna salad nightmare ended, I moved on to making fish batter and getting some cod battered for what later would become fish and chips. Yes, I work in a bistro, and much as we have tried to shake off the burgers and other pub fare in the past, the ensuing riots have forced us to leave said items on the menu.

Once my rage over the tuna salad and fish batter diminishes I give myself a pep talk about how Rome wasn't built in a day, or some such nonsense, and about how maybe an apprenticing electrician spends their first year drilling holes in drywall and not doing anything 'electrical' -- anything to make myself feel better about wasted opportunities. Maybe I am just tired. I was reading "Comfort Me With Apples" by Ruth Reichl just before I went to work and all the food in the book sounded so luxuriously delicious that I started to resent the pedestrian food I fed Jen for dinner and especially disliked the mountain of tuna I had to transform into sandwiches.

I understand that I can't run unless I've learned to walk, but I wish I could fast forward the next five years or so, it's going to be agonizingly slow.