I always wanted to try my hand at cook book/recipe writing. But I don’t have it in me. So I am going to offer you just the opposite.
When it comes to cooking, I heavily, if not solely, rely on someone else to tell me what to do. There are so many creative recipe blogs out there that I feel little need to come up with anything original. Instead, I am going to offer information that I have uncovered that is just as pertinent to cooking. From personal experience, I have learned many things about how the cooking process can go sour, or sweet, or tangy, or just plain disgusting, and I would like to share with you some the lessons that I have learned along the way.
Tip #1 – Never trust your instincts
Sometimes I like to tell myself that the phantom recipe writer on the internet can’t be right. Surely they did not intend to write 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I’ve never heard of anyone using less than 4. So I use 4. And I’m wrong. And what was supposed to be a delicious pasta primavera is now greasier than a Big Mac.
Tip #2 – Watch what you drink
Don’t get me wrong, drink while you’re cooking. Quitting drinking entirely is not the way to stop putting complete crap on the table. Even though there is no evidence to suggest this is true, I am relatively positive that there is absolutely no connection between alcohol and quality of cooking (unless, of course, alcohol is involved in the cooking process, which we can’t talk about now because this is a blog about “how not to cook,” not “how to cook.”)
Tip #3 – Check your spice labels
A story: It was always nice to have a night in Iowa City that I could actually make myself something to eat. No boyfriend to go out with, no symphony rehearsals, and Jess must not have felt like substituting dinner calories with PBR. So I tried to make coconut curry chicken. There is a lot of curry powder in such a dish, but not cinnamon. Lesson learned: Check your spice labels. Turns out adding a great deal of cinnamon does not enhance the flavor of curry, regardless of what it may say on Yahoo! answers later this evening.
Tip #4 – Sushi needs a sharp knife
Not all of my cooking failures occurred in Iowa City. I have failed rather consistently throughout my life. But here is another story that takes place in that tiny, ghetto, slanted, moldy, rat infested, freezing, yet scolding, two bedroom “apartment” Katie Allen and I called home.
Sushi is a huge undertaking for first timers. Luckily, Katie and I chose not to go the raw fish route for our maiden voyage. Had we done that, we probably wouldn’t be around to tell the story. We did try to do things right though. We bought the bamboo mat and invested in some nice chopsticks and soy sauce dishes.
I wish I could throw a little turn into this story and tell you that Katie Allen and I probably made the best homemade sushi one could hope for. And maybe we would have, only there is no way of telling because the knife we had in our house, most likely purchased by my parents at a goodwill circa 1973, only flattened the sushi, creating a kind of soupy (the rice may or may not have been cooked right) blend of vegetables, raw seaweed, and rice. Luckily, the ingredients did not go to waste, and Katie and I decided that we were not above eating sushi as a salad.
Tip # 5 – If you don’t like it, don’t cook it
One of my four summers in Aspen (each of which I learned a great deal about how not to cook), I lived in a small two bedroom apartment with three hot girls. The hot part is not relevant. One of the girls was a complete health food fanatic. She ate fruits and veggies all day every day, climbed mountains in the morning, and ate oats everyday for breakfast. I wanted to be like her, so I adopted her habits. A few years later, sitting lonely in an oversized apartment in Houston, I was thinking about what would be the healthiest dinner for someone of my age, gender, and time restraints. So during one of the more self-searching phases of my Master’s degree, I decided to try my hand at cooking health food that’s too healthy for anyone’s good.
Even though a quinoa, lentil, raisin, and walnut loaf sounds appetizing to the health food fanatic in me, in real life, it’s pretty gross. I’m not a huge fan of plain quinoa or walnuts. So it was a bad idea and it sucked.
Side note: If you completely fail at making your dinner, a hearty dinner of chips and salsa will typically suffice.
Tip #6 – Adding salt does not fix everything
Salad dressings taste better out of the store-bought bottle. I firmly believe that no person can make a salad dressing better than a machine. Not even you Miss I get paid to have a cooking blog.
Apologies: Shout out to everyone who puts recipes online so people like me can survive.
Despite my better judgment, one day I did attempt to make my own salad dressing. I failed and I learned. Just the other day, I decided to make my own oily blend and purchased all the ingredients. So I did what the interwebs told me to. I put a tablespoon of lemon juice, some lemon zest, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and a dash of salt in a jar. It didn’t taste like anything. So I added a little more salt. Gross. Maybe it needs more. So I added more. And so on.
Tip # 7 – If you can’t cook, don’t pay more for ingredients
I enjoy shopping at the higher quality grocery stores in town. I can’t afford to buy two cups of organic coconut flour for seven dollars, nor is there any reason for me to do so, but I do and it sits in my pantry. There is something about being in upscale grocery stores that makes me feel a mixture of classy, filthy rich, and a total hippie. So I go to pretend I’m someone I’m not. It is tempting in such a place to believe that you have a place in the culinary canon. But if I can’t tell the difference between thyme and oregano, I probably don’t need a $45 bottle of balsamic vinegar. Sad truth: it’s not going to make a difference.
Tip #8 – If you suck, don’t offer to feed others
I have learned that there are very few foods I feel comfortable cooking for others. I have no problem serving bread from the store accompanied by ground pepper soaked in olive oil. Everyone wins. And I have no problem serving peppered lavender tenderloin roast. JK.
Unfortunately for my friends, I thoroughly enjoy cooking for others. So, if you do decide to eat the vegan cookies I bring to work, that’s on you. Also, they have flax, and they will make you gassy.
In Conclusion
Despite the negativity and seemingly self-hatred attitude expressed in the post above, I have found a lot of comfort in cooking lately, and am not planning on stopping anytime soon. I figure that if I can write down everything I do wrong, at least I’m adding something.
