The Instinctive Cook

A few months ago I had been following recipes for everything I cooked.  I would follow every recipe to the letter.

I had begun to notice that this would not always yield desired results, based on taste and the anticipation that the brain placed on the meal.

It must have been two or three months back that I decided to start messing with recipes.**  I changed an ingredient based on what I had on-hand, or changed altogether based on my own tastes.  A recipe may have called for fresh thyme but what if all I had was dry? Another may have asked for me to caramelize an onion but what if I wanted to quickly fry it instead?  I used what I wanted, when I wanted.  Lather, rinse, and repeat.

After a few months of trusting my instincts and improvising when I could, I began to notice that one starts to develop a muscle-memory of sorts. I have made the same chicken soup recipe for three years now, and have more or less committed it to memory. From that basic recipe I learned so much that I feel confident in fabricating other soups and broths.  Memory becomes instinct becomes memory and so on.

Despite a few months of tweaking and changing recipes, I still occasionally find myself bogged down in the everyday cooking and lost energy for the learning side of things, the "where," "why," and "when" cooking takes place.  And yet, I am a better cook now than when I started, something that is measurable in all of this.

What is the goal, then?  To be a good cook?  To be able to recall, from memory, a dish or meal on command?

I know I began this blog not to be a good cook, but a better one.  I also wanted to strive to not only make but to learn.  Therein lies the conflict: is the learning in the doing or the doing in the learning?  Pun would be completely intended if I said this were a Chicken/Egg controversy. 

Perhaps the answer is both. You learn as you do, and then do as you learn.  One's mistakes begets one's successes, and further on.  It's both chicken and egg, scrambled into a delicious omelet.

Another humbling, another lesson learned, as it were.  Off to go and try and make (heck, even learn!) red beans and rice from memory. (Beats crosswords, right?)



**I get frightened, however, and won't mess with a recipe if it's for something for people other than J and I, as I worry my tweaks will make the dish come out terrible.  This is fine, but I have a separate goal in mind when cooking for others: to please the crowd and not my particular taste.

Zen and the Art of Refridgerator Maintence

Happy New Year!

I have been up these past few nights wondering what to write on the blog.  I'm not one for "resolutions" this time of year, as I don't usually remember them past the end of my nose.  Also, I'm none too good at finishing what I start.