| Jul082009 | Cooking Again |
I’m probably not cooking as much I used to and I think part of it is that I hit a plateau.
I was so excited to learn new recipes and discover that my own two hands are capable of reproducing some pretty interesting food as long as I had the recipe in front of me. But I started to get bored because it sometimes felt like paint-by-numbers. Sure, the food was good but it was never my own and I had trouble understand exactly what made it good.
I think after you’ve achieved some basic competency in cooking, it’s easy to just stay inside a box. Maybe you only cook pasta and you’re happy with that. If you want variety, you can eat out and everything else is just pasta, pasta, pasta. That’s all well and good but I have different objectives when it comes to cooking.
I enjoy cooking because:
- I love eating
- I get to multitask and feel like I’m juggling
- It’s sometimes a direct lesson in physics and chemistry
- I imagine something in my head and duplicate it on a plate
- People are always impressed by good food
I’m slowly fighting my way through a rut at the moment. Cooking and food shows always help. I recommend everyone try watching a cooking show while they cook. For me, it stimulates the part of my brain that thinks about food in a creative way. I’d always be running to the kitchen whenever I was watching Top Chef, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, or more recently: MasterChef Australia.
Another thing I’m doing is reading a lot of cooking blogs. Well, when I say “reading”, I mean subscribing to and suddenly falling behind on. You know how it is. But there’s one video blog I’d like you all to check out, it’s from Chef Todd Mohr and his website I Hate Cooking Recipes. His focus is on teaching methods and understanding the how and why of cooking so you can create your own flavors and not be a slave to any recipe. I think his lessons assume a certain level of competency but it’s perfect for where I’m at.
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