To be a chef in The Bear's world kitchen

+ Chaos menu in the basement of the heart w/ no spoilers

Jul 18, 2023

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(This short post on the tv show The Bear isn’t a review and doesn’t contain plot spoilers. The show became a lens through which I found myself asking lots of heartfelt questions that I eventually needed to write down and work through. I hope you enjoy reading and/or listening...)

The Basement of the Heart

The basement of the heart is a metaphor for the submerged places in us where our forgotten, boxed-up and dustier parts await the wise attention they’ve been needing. Sometimes wiser attention arrives all on its own to shed its loving light. And sometimes wiser attention needs help to show up.

Great storytellers accompany us into the dark corners of our hearts so we don’t stagger around in there alone and trembling. Under the light of great stories, facets of our being we’ve never touched or imagined suddenly shine like diamonds. The illumination of great storytelling is how our old stories become new again and lead the loneliest pieces of us back home to the great collective heart we all come from.

I devoured the second season of The Bear 2 weeks ago and am still haunted in a good way by all the questions the show stirred in me. Questions about art, storytelling, self-sabotage, salvation and passion. Questions that might be worth sitting with whether or not you’ve seen the show or whether or not you liked it. First question:

Is it fair to say that great art is inspired by people who are, in the end, willing to change and that those who don’t change rarely—if ever—inspire epic stories?

My favorite thing about the kitchen world of The Bear is the slow realization of what the story is really about. From the first moments, we watch the characters’ anxieties begin to build, erupt and collide in their kitchen world of chaos and noise. We also sense that the characters’ individual and shared struggles to prepare beautiful, thoughtful food aren’t just in response to a demand for perfection. The characters’ actions intimate that their troubles, even in rawest form, are more meaningful than they know.

As someone who’s worked in the healing arts, I found magic in witnessing everyone stumble through their own (often misguided) healing processes without ever formally engaging in any healing practice, without expressing any intention to heal or even mentioning any word that hinted at the notion of “healing.”

Is it possible that our most meaningful changes occur in the feral place between blindness and awareness without treading too close to either?

Chaos Cooking

I have The Bear to thank for the term “chaos cooking,” which aims, I now know, to make surprisingly delicious food by combining disparate ingredients that don’t typically go together. Chaos cooking describes the way I’ve always loved to cook and do any number of things in my life.

Is there a human passion so strong that it can trounce and flatten the most deeply rooted chaotic forces such as self-sabotage?

I also wonder whether, if our current world is one giant kitchen, a chaos smorgasbord is the most fitting menu we could serve one another.

The basement of the heart is an ideal place to cook the chaos food of life. We’d enter the poorly-lit space, don our aprons and begin to sort through the disparate and moldy feelings forgotten there. Eventually, we’d begin trial-and-error explorations of how these energies might combine into a surprising, nourishing cuisine of undeniable inner beauty. Perhaps the hope is to finally grow up and become a real chef in the kitchen of life, an honor bestowed on those who are finally less afraid of failing in the attempt to “do better,” and who are less satisfied going through the motions that signal “doing better.”

In a world where so many people must wait for access to the most basic chances to have a life, why do others forfeit the many chances they’re granted just because they can?

Great stories remind us that healing is most valuable to those whose wounds finally pain them enough to fight for a chance to have and do better.

How long can we avoid the difficult lessons that stalk our lives and still manage to save ourselves in the end?

There’s a privilege in not having to pay consequences for doing the “wrong things” and an inherent danger for those who postpone doing the “right thing” for too long.

How long can we avoid the difficult lessons that stalk our lives and still manage to save ourselves in the end?

We’re reminded that our troubles can teach us how to nourish the neglected parts of ourselves so we can become fully alive again.

If you haven’t seen The Bear, I invite you to allow it to guide you down into your heart’s basement. The story offers ZERO KUMBAYA and yet stokes a fire to warm the worn and weariest parts of you.

If you’ve seen The Bear, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below (and will delete comments containing spoilers). I’m also interested in any reflections you have on the questions above. And, any questions you have that no one else has thought of.

Foster & Flourish

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