Tuesday, June 26, 2012

I Envy Cooks

I am not musically gifted and I down right must have a psychological impairment when it comes to cooking.  Ergo why I envy people so who can do

this

and

this.

Then again it could be genetics.  My dad could burn water.  I also remember him cooking a Tombstone pizza and leaving it in there for so long it curled up like a thick Frisbee.

4 comments:

Amy said...

Thanks for the linkage, Cap.

For the record, I envy people who understand the finer points of economics! And calculus. It took me forever and a day, plus the discovery of Khan Academy, to get calculus...

Anonymous said...

Learning to cook is well worth the effort. Its not as hard as you might think. There are a lot of recipes available on the internet including many with video instructions. If you know how to cook, you can eat really well for a lot less money. As well as cooking the odd dinner (my wife does all the cooking monday to friday) I make cookie,s cakes, pies, pickles, jams, bread. I have made beer and wine, though I don't do it regularly. I am more or less self taught. It's so easy even women can do it. Don't be intimidated, give it a shot. - Minuteman

Anonymous said...

Oh God. Captain, do the following:
1. go to grocery store;
2. buy steak;
3. go home;
4. put steak in oven;
5. broil (there will be a setting called "broil")
until it smells good.
6. remove and eat.

Or
4. put steak in Teflon frying pan;
5. apply heat.
6. remove and eat.

Now once you can do this, there are quite a few obvious refinements, the first of which is to apply butter, oil, or margarine, with salt and pepper to the steak before broiling or frying, and to TURN the steak as it cooks. But your first experiment will guide the way to improvements.

Cooking is fundamentally easy. It is a matter of applying heat to raw food.

Some, who enjoy hunting, don't even skin their meat before putting it into a pot for boiling.

I disagree about recipes. They can be helpful with unfamiliar foods (just what DO you do with a jerusalem artichoke?) but they really aren't necessary.

Take soup. There are many recipes for soup. But soup is essentially water boiled with whatever happens to be around. E.g. leftovers from steak, a carrot, or a potato, etc. Put in water, and boil. Your first experiment will lead you to cut up the carrot and/or potato the second time you make it, and to add salt.

After you have mastered these steps, in two tries, THEN you can go on to make the acquaintance of the Mighty Lentil, and spices and herbs.

Anonymous said...

A. Get yourself an "instant" read thermometer. Circa 20-25$
This will save you from overdone meat etc... Also vastly removes judgement and experience, the temperature does not lie.
B. Follow recipe.
It helps to follow good recipes, Cook's Illustrated has good tested recipes, for example. They do a lot of variations and TELL you why.
C. Get a timer to remind you and concentrate on cooking when you are cooking, all my true disasters have come from not paying attention.

There is nothing mysterious about it.