Lolean was the cook at White’s Café in the small Texas town where I spent my high school years. I took my first job as a dishwasher there when I was about 15. I would sneak furtive glimpses of her from the corner of my eye as I passed the kitchen with a tub of dishes, her red hair neatly pulled back and secured as she expertly moved from pot to pot, making all kinds of delicious magic to be served up on the steam table that day. She didn’t pay much attention to me as I made my half-hourly treks from the dining room to the dreary, cramped dishwashing area I was tethered to. Even still, she was my first lesson in the power of having a creative talent that few others could boast.
Lolean was not just a cook. Her aromatic Southern dishes of collard greens, pinto beans, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, smothered steak, meatloaf and so much more were well-known and much loved in our small town. She made pies at home and brought them in each week. If you could have picked up White’s Café and plopped it down in the middle of Dallas, it would have become legendary, with lines wrapping around the small building. You would have needed a half dozen Loleans to keep up.
Lolean was a “maker,” a person who uses their craft or skill to create an experience for others. Whether throwing a pot in clay, painting a mural, hand-carving a wooden toy or rolling a pie crust, makers can feel their way through the process, relying on instinct and knowledge polished by years of experience. She didn’t need a cookbook to make her beans taste so creamy and delicious. She just knew how to do it. One might argue that Southern cooking isn’t an art. I would respond, however, that cooking is an art that, unlike artistic pursuits such as music or painting, appeals to all five senses.
White’s Café was owned by Bobby White, a young man with a solid background in running restaurants. As a boss, he was often friendly and very patient — but he could be intimidating. To brighten my dreary little dishwashing cave, I once brought a portable radio that I plugged in above the sink at my station. When Bobby spotted it, he snapped the plug from the wall, dropped the radio in the trash and gave me a look teenagers often got in those days to let them know how much they still had to learn. I washed the dishes in bruised silence for the rest of my shift.
But Lolean really didn’t have a boss. She set her own schedule. Made the dishes she wanted to. Came and went as she pleased. Bobby had little to say in such matters. I was in awe of her confidence and I wondered how she got to that point. Slowly it occurred to me that Lolean had such leeway because of her superior skills as a cook. Because nobody else could make the dishes she did, she had free reign.
This lesson has stuck with me for years: Freedom comes with making yourself indispensable.
If your skills — your ability to be a maker — are in demand, you earn ultimate autonomy over your time and the work you do. What’s important to understand is that you can’t simply demand that kind of autonomy unless you earn it.
Lolean spent years perfecting her craft, most likely under the tutelage of other good cooks who made demands of her time. She earned her autonomy through hard work and diligence.
And that is a lesson worth remembering.
Dusty Crocker, PhD, is Professor of Professional Design Practice at Texas Christian University.