“The Perfect Little Egg Sandwich,” I scribbled on a Post-it note.
It was the first thing that our first customer ordered when the bakery opened. I welcomed him into the brand-new shop and carefully assembled it myself: a fluffy, two-inch-thick slice of warm scrambled eggs, seasoned with caramelized shallots, chives, and a liberal sprinkling of sea salt and ground black pepper; a paper-thin slice of Gruyère cheese, slightly melted under the broiler; all between a freshly toasted, buttery brioche bun. Simple, I thought.
But the word “perfect” changes everything. It is a monumental title for a humble creation to live up to.
“Is it really perfect?” the skeptics asked. “What makes it perfect?” the theorists wondered.
After a while, even I started to question the whole idea of perfection. I threw myself back into the kitchen in an attempt to make the sandwich more perfect. What if I added bacon or pancetta? Maybe some sort of spread over the bread? As winter rolled around, I even created a version of the sandwich with fresh black truffles.
When our first customer—now a regular—returned for his daily breakfast sandwich, I was eager to show him the new option. “Would you like to try the one with the black truffle?” our staff suggested.
“No,” he said, “just the perfect is fine.” He said it in a nonchalant way. But his answer was a wake-up call.
Perhaps the platonic ideal of the perfect little egg sandwich doesn’t exist. The idea of a flawless state is a static one. And it suggests that nothing can be improved upon. In that sense it feels a bit limited; it’s the end of the road. Being perfect may not be the real goal in the end, but becoming perfect is filled with the promise of always progressing. When I thought about perfection as a quest, I let go of the stress of expectations. Instead, I was filled with infinite inspiration. In my mind I placed the word “perfect” silently in front of every new creation I attempted. When you no longer fear perfection, you set loftier goals and surprisingly accomplish more than you think you might. Creations break, they stall, there’s always a better version to be made. But few creations are ever great unless they first aspire to be perfect.