Why I Cook - And You Should Too
The difference between cooking and cooking is best demonstrated by an analogy. My wife does not like to cook. She just doesn't enjoy the activity, hence the only reason for her to prepare food is in order to serve a biological need. To her great credit, most of the time it is not her own hunger that makes her prepare food - we have two kids and two cats therefore the majority of our family are non-autotrophic. I enjoy cooking as a form of relaxation, sometimes even as a form of meditation. But don't get a false impression: in terms of purpose I totally share my wife's purpose to cook for the effect. I just happen to enjoy the activity, hence the reason I prepare food does not serve the sole purpose of getting anyone fed. The second reason is for my own well being - for me cooking is a type of lone time. Therefore in 9 out of 10 times I don my noise cancelling headphones, turn on some awesome music thereby shutting out the world when I cook. It is pure gold, I love it. The cooking itself is the activity that legitimizes my free floating relaxation. Therefore the fact that food is being prepared is more of a mere side effect.
Being a little judgemental I could feed a stereotype here: My wife and I represent the German and the French way of cooking: while Germans eat to live, the French live to eat.
Cook For Life, But More Importantly: Live For Cooking
There are several ways you will benefit from cooking your own food both short and long term. In the short run you're might want to eat more healthy, lose some weight, impress your spouse or your friends, parents, spouse's parents, save money, adhere to a specific diet (vegetarian, vegan, fruitarian, etc.), bring more variety into your eating habits and so on. All legitimate reasons to start a cooking habit to increase the awareness of what and how much you eat. In the long run you will create an identity of a cook - no matter how much of an expert you consider yourself, if you cook on a regular basis cooking will be ingrained in your personality. At some point you will have memorized a significant variety of recipes that you can just pull out of your sleeves, whether you're in the supermarket or in the kitchen. In order to compose a delicious meal you will seek inspiration in addition to new recipes.
Choose Simple Dishes
Also I have to admit that I love to cheat my way to success when it comes to cooking. My approach is one of maximum effect and necessary input. My favorite cheat is to cook recipes that leave practically no margin for failure and work for everybody all the time. I never do fancy stuff - I stick to the basics and experiment only within a 99,9% boundary of confidence interval for dishes that work for the entire family. Nothing too spicy, nothing too boring, only solid recipes I can refine over time and adapt to the ever evolving tastes of my three most important clients (wife, two sons). My family loves french crêpes - we have them almost every week once for breakfast. However, little does my family know that there have not been two occasions where I used the very same recipe. I always like to add some extra special to the basic recipe. Therefore I am always excited to see their reactions when they take the first bite out of the 'new batch'. With easy dishes you can do these kinds of experiments at virtually zero risk of failure. Plus there's an entire process behind cooking: planning the dishes, doing the shopping, preparing the ingredients, the actual cooking process of course and finally cleaning your workspace. All in all cooking is more of an organizational task than a challenge of craft. All the more I can just emphasize my KISS advice: keep it super simple :o)
Surprise Your Customers
For special occasions, like birthdays, reunions, mothers' days and so on, I love to prepare cakes. Cakes are pretty much the only field where I engage in experiments that have a serious chance for failure. I like to call myself a real heavyweight champion in the field of cheesecake mastery. I have never met anyone who doesn't like cheesecake - and if so, chances are they have a serious issue of bad taste anyways. The wonderful thing about cheesecake is that the recipe is based on a few ingredients you cannot really mess up. However there are infinite options for variety: bake in cherries, blueberries, strawberries, use lemons for the pie, pour some shredded almonds or walnuts on top and so on. It is the way I love to work most: deliver the basics and blow away your customers with the extras they do not expect. You'll be surprised about the long term effect of some work enthusiasm on your customers.
School For Life: Be An Agile Chef
Finally cooking is not just about developing a healthy and more conscious eating habit. More importantly it will teach you planning, preparation, organization and give you the pride and deep satisfaction of a finished product. However most importantly it will teach you one lesson that is important for life: listen to and understand your customers. You will have a hard time guessing your customer's tastes and desires unless you establish a process to refine and improve your dishes all the time. This is especially valid if you have kids, whose tastes change very quickly. The food that they loved last week can be boring or even disgusting. This is the reason why I love to keep a solid portfolio of 'cash cows' (as of now e.g. spaghetti napoli, fusilli bolognese, lasagna, chili con carne) , experiment with the 'stars' (currently asian rice and noodle dishes, sweet and sour, cooked salmon, soups) and occasionally throw in some batches of 'question marks' (spinach, quinoa, cous-cous, flammkuchen). This way I can always figure out how the tastes are evolving and what might work in future. It is my way of rapid prototyping to keep my portfolio on the top of the tastes of my customers who happen to be my most honest and sometimes cruellest critics.
True improvement necessitates honesty, dedicated adaptation and finally action. This does not only apply to mastering the kitchen. Happy cooking y'all.
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