I recently have been trying to do more cooking. It been on my list of things to work on for while now just because it feels like an “adult” thing I should know how to do. I’ll look up recipes for inspiration, but a lot of the time I lack certain ingredients and, being to lazy to venture out to the market and procure the exact ingredients, I end up doing my own variation of the dish. I also don’t have measuring implements, except rough tablespoons, and find that I am also too lazy to actually measure out or convert how much of each thing is going into my creation.
Usually it turns out fine. If not, I can adjust it with spices, or ketchup, or just try to remember for next time.
Growing up, cooking was one of the things that seemed inaccessible to me in that I lacked the experience or the knowledge for it. I was the type to always want to follow the recipe exactly, or else it wouldn’t turn out as good. But for some reason I was only like this with food. With my toys, with rocks and sticks, with garden tools, I was always repurposing things and finding different ways to interact with them,
The inaccessibility of cooking is partially due to the advent of competitive cooking shows. We see these world class chefs giving harsh criticism to what most of us at home looks like perfectly good food. If those professional chefs can’t make good tasting food, then how the hell am I supposed to be able to. This makes us forget that taste is somewhat is subjective. Food can taste good without being complex and refined, as long as that’s what you are going for.
This is not to devalue professional chefs and people with “refined” palates; in fact I admire and envy them. People who dedicate their lives to creating the best flavors and the best culinary experiences enrich the lives of so many people in so many ways. All this is just to say that, for me, my food doesn’t have to impress Gordan Ramsey, it just has to taste good to me, and that’s a relatively low bar.
nANIMOv 