57. Failure Isn't an Option

It's not even on the menu.

The Plate Cleaner turned four years old on October 28th and I had hoped to celebrate that milestone with an exciting change: Plate Cleaner videos. I started recording one about two weeks before that, in the hope of posting it on the anniversary. That didn’t happen for a number of reasons. First of all, there was the subject I’d planned for that first video, sauerkraut, which can take up to two weeks to make, time I clearly hadn’t budgeted for that would put me past my deadline. Second, videos also take a long time to make, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing. (More on that later.) And last, I received a nice long visit from the thought, “If you never finish it, no one can say they didn’t like it.” A visit that will set your schedule back a good while if you let it. (Obvs I did.)

In the meantime, I posted a short video to the new Plate Cleaner YouTube channel about emulsifying small amounts of vinaigrette. I’m very excited to announce that as of this writing, it has garnered a whopping seven views. (And 569 times on The Plate Cleaner’s TikTok channel!)

But the sauerkraut video remained unfinished.

This fall I started teaching a course about writing for digital advertising at Centennial College, and one of the first things I showed my students was a video someone had made from a recording of Ira Glass, of This American Life fame, talking about what he calls “The Gap.” It’s the difference between what your taste knows to be good and what you’re actually capable of producing when you start out. The Gap can be immense and seem insurmountable. Many never get past it and quit. But the only way to get past The Gap is to start making things, no matter how much your taste knows they are not good.

I have spent a fair part of my advertising career on commercial film shoots, which often means solving problems on the fly. Huddling with my art director partner and the director to make things work better. Tweaking a line so it lands even better than we scripted it. I’ve argued for things, resisted others, and capitulated on still other details while shooting. On set, I have developed a fair amount of taste.

What I hadn’t ever done before was shoot something for myself. And that gap? It makes the Darién Gap seem like a game of hopscotch. For all my time making ads, I’ve never had to frame up a shot from scratch, hang lights, or worry about camera placement. I had my job on set; I did it and let everyone else do theirs. Part of me thinks I should have been taking notes all along, but another part of me knows I need to learn by doing.

A bag I bought recently sums it up nicely.

And learning by doing necessarily involves a lot of failure. Or rather, failure in one sense but not in another. If you’re trying, I often tell my students, you’re not failing. You’re only getting better.¹ So I regard my first video for The Plate Cleaner as both a success and a failure. It’s a success because I managed to get it done, exported, and uploaded to YouTube in spite of every possible fear I have. And it’s as failure because, Good God, just watch it. The lighting is abysmal. The colours are all over the place. I couldn’t remember what the font in my logo was when I was doing the titles. The sound is spotty at times because I didn’t know how to use the microphones I bought. The edit is pretty random. The cadence of my delivery seems like a poor (and completely unintentional) ripoff of the Glen and Friends YouTube channel. And it’s over a half hour long! In an ideal world, it would have been more like 10-15 minutes, but that’s where my editing and storytelling (and shoot planning) skills are right now.² But I’m trying.

One useful thing I’ve learned recently is to believe in yourself and treat yourself with the sort of kindness and encouragement you’d give someone else you cared about. So I need to remind myself, just like I do my students, that trying is succeeding, even if it’s a failure this time.

Where I absolutely didn’t fail in the video is the fermentation. If you manage to make it through the whole thing, you’ll see: I have closed The Gap when it comes to preserving cabbage.

I’ve heard from many people in the time I’ve been fermenting things that they love the flavour and are curious about trying it, but ultimately are afraid of it. Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it? It’s absolutely possible to fail at making sauerkraut. I’ve had pink molds and black molds form on batches. I’ve had batches go slimy and others that go completely, inexplicably dry. But the great thing about sauerkraut and most fermented vegetables is that they will tell you very clearly when you should not eat them. If in doubt, just chuck it. Cabbage is cheap.

If you are interested in giving sauerkraut a go, I want to emphasize a few points I made in the video but want to reiterate to make sure they sink in.

• Make any fermentation with the freshest ingredients you can. I’ve heard fermentation called “controlled rot” and if your ingredients are already on the road to rot, you’ve ceded control.

• Work clean. The process of fermentation is usually very inhospitable to nasty organisms; just like working with the freshest ingredients, a tidy, hygienic work area gives you more control over the rot.

• Make sure you’re using salt that will encourage fermentation—meaning salts with no additives. Caking agents or iodine can inhibit fermentation and leave you with a jar of mush.

• Measure by weight rather than by volume. Tablespoons and teaspoons are useless when it comes to measuring salt because different salt crystals take up different amounts of space. The only way to accurately measure how much salt you’re using is by weight. And the only way to know how much salt you need is by weighing our other ingredients.

• Think of salt, time, and temperature as three ingredients that are interdependent. Increasing one will mean lowering or increasing the others. When the temperature goes up, you either need more salt or less time to make sure your batch doesn’t go too wild. When it’s colder, less salt or more time will make sure the good bacteria can thrive enough to work their magic. If you want your kraut faster (I wouldn’t, however, because slower ferments develop better, more complex flavours) use less salt and keep your batch in a warmer place. Etc., etc.

Once you’ve got the hang of sauerkraut, there is no end of places your fermentation journey can take you. But by trying, and even by failing once or twice, you’ve already succeeded.

And now the video:

Just like everything else about The Plate Cleaner, video is a work in progress, so if there’s anything you’d be interested in seeing, let me know in the comments or by replying to this email if you’re a subscriber.

Also, if you’re one of my friends in the production community, please let me know what I can do in my next video to make it better. Learning by mistakes is fine, but so is learning by being taught.

What I’m consuming…

Honestly, it’s been a lot of YouTube videos about “How not to make your food videos look like crap.” Other than that, there hasn’t been a lot I can think of.

What’s on the menu…

• Knorr Tomato and Chicken Bouillon — This summer I saw an Instagram post by Sohla El-Waylly about how she uses Knorr Tomato to make tomatoes taste as tomatoey as possible.

  sohlae

  

  A post shared by @sohlae

  I eventually tracked some down at La Tienda Movil, beside Sandown Market. Looking online, I was shocked to see it was around $17, but when I saw it in store and realized it was for a massive two-pound jar instead of the tiny one in Sohla’s post, all was good. I gave some to my sister who has since proclaimed that “It makes everything good.” And it really does. Pretty much anything that could use a boost of umami will benefit from it. Used judiciously, it adds no more tomato flavour than fish sauce adds fishy flavour to whatever it’s added to.

1. Unless you’re failing on assignments, of course. Because that’s actual failing. But in class, trying = not failing.

2. It also could have been 75 minutes, so let’s all be thankful for that.