This is the second one · Musicate: Your First Song

Meishi Xie

16h • General discussion 💭

This is the second one

The first time I cooked this steak, I ruined it. 💥

I picked a pan size that was too small for searing so I left it in there. A bit longer. A bit longer. 🕰️

I really wanted to get that golden-brown crust.

When I cut into it, the middle was the same grey brown as the edges. No juice. 🥤

I watched someone eat it.

They said it was nice.

It was not nice.

I do not cook to eat. I cook to say something.

A ruined steak is not really about the steak.

Afterwards I had a very reasonable thought..

Steak is just not my thing.

That sounds like humility.

It is actually fear wearing a nicer outfit. 👗

I know that thought. I have heard it in here too, in different words.

I am not a piano person.

My hands are too small.

I started too late.

I tried once and it was bad.

Same sentence. Different kitchen.

A couple of weeks later I bought another one. Same cut. Same shop. Same nervous walk home.

Three small changes this time.

Out of the fridge much earlier to rest it.

Bigger pan, much shorter time.

I rested the steak and cleaned up the kitchen while counting down my ten minutes.

Ten minutes is a long time when you want to know if you got it right. 😅

Then I cut it. Pink all the way through. 🥳

I did not become a good cook that night. I just found out which part I had been getting wrong, by doing the whole thing again and paying attention to a different bit.

The first steak was not wasted. The first steak was the information.

Same with this community. 🏡

I do not get it right the first time either.

I have written lessons that ran too long.

Explained things that made perfect sense in my head and none at all on your screen. 😂

Built tools that some of you loved and some of you opened once and never touched again.

I only ever found that out because people tried them.

That is the part I keep thinking about.

Every time one of you sits down and actually plays the thing I built, you are handing me the pink or the grey. You are showing me which part to change next.

So try it. Not to prove anything to me. Try it because your hands on it are the only way either of us finds out what works for you.

Some of it will click straight away. Some of it will not, and that is not you getting it wrong.

That is just the first steak. It tells me where to go back to the pan.

I served a grey steak to someone I love and then took a photo of the next one like I had invented cooking. 🥩 📸

We are all just having another go.🙏🏼

P.S. I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

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This is the second one