Time is our most precious resource and one over which we have no control. It follows its own course, and we can only respond to its passage.
Time – He’s waiting in the wings
He speaks of senseless things
His script is you and me boys.David Bowie ‘Time’
That opening may sound heavy for the start of a week, but it unexpectedly connects to cooking. Yesterday I roasted some red peppers for a recipe. The roasted strands of red, orange and yellow capsicum were silky and sweet, drenched in a simple dressing — the memory of them makes my mouth water. I hadn’t roasted peppers in a long time, and the experience reminded me both of their sweet, concentrated flavour and of how infuriatingly fiddly peeling them can be.
Peeling peppers is one of those tasks where the effort feels wildly out of proportion to the result. The time, mess and mild fury involved don’t always seem worth the small improvement in texture or flavour. Reflecting on it, other kitchen chores spring to mind that are similarly irritating:
1) Removing thyme leaves from their stems.
2) Peeling roasted chestnuts.
Herding Cats
I once heard someone describe a chaotic scene with a punchline that compared it to “putting an oyster into a parking meter.” I can imagine the same metaphor applied to peeling pepper skin: awkward, slippery and almost impossible to control. It’s like trying to herd cats.
Tasks like these feel a lot like a dentist visit. I know they’re beneficial in the long run, and I might be fine without doing them, yet the process is dreaded. There’s anxiety and messy aftermath, and the visible reward can be minimal. Peeling peppers requires patience and creates a small gain — sometimes not enough to justify the fuss. It’s fiddly, awkward and, frankly, annoying.
Take Your Thyme
Thyme leaves are another tiny test of patience. Some supermarket thyme has thin stalks that snap if you try to strip the leaves in one motion, leaving you to pluck individual leaves or tiny clusters. When time is scarce in the kitchen, this slow, repetitive task becomes maddening. It could be a calming ritual, or it could feel like punishment — tedious and seemingly endless.
You might say a practical person can simply plan ahead, set aside time and perform these tasks with calm. But there’s a quieter resentment, a sense of life minutes spent on tasks that yield marginal returns. That frustration is captured in John Dryden’s warning: “Beware the fury of a patient man.” Patience, when it becomes repression of annoyance, can turn to a delayed fury. Denied irritations may resurface later, amplified or clustered with other frustrations.
Perhaps there’s an enlightened patience available — a composed, accepting attitude that turns fiddly chores into peaceful practice. Maybe a monastic retreat would help me reach such a state. For now, though, that level of Zen remains aspirational.
Take Your Time
There’s a subtle moral tucked into the Bowie line “Take your time.” To me it doesn’t mean “do it slowly” in the casual sense. It means take ownership of the time you have — use it thoughtfully and avoid wasting it.
So I stopped peeling the roasted red peppers. I tried once, cursed at the mess, and then decided it wasn’t worth my time. Instead I started my photoshoot earlier, unhurried, and produced some of the best food photos I’ve ever taken. Likewise with thyme: I often use whole sprigs and remove them before serving rather than spend minutes plucking each leaf. By choosing where to invest my minutes, I focused on creative growth — improving my food photography — instead of battling with pepper skins and my patience.