Not long ago, someone asked me how I learned to cook. Hmmm…that’s a tough question! My first dip into cooking was when I was a Girl Scout, and my mom was the Cooking Badge mom. I’m guessing I was probably in fourth or fifth grade. What I do know is that if there was a badge involved, I was IN!
While I don’t remember a lot of the details, I’ll always remember the two recipes we learned that day – chocolate chip cookies and my all-time favorite casserole. I’ve been making both ever since, and can rattle off the chocolate chip cookie recipe, no sweat (go figure) – a cup of brown, half cup of white, 2 eggs, a dash of vanilla, three quarters cup of shortening, cream it together then add 2 cups and a little more of flour…not that much, a half teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of baking soda, and lots of chocolate chips.
The casserole was a favorite that until recently, I could NOT replicate to save my life. Leave it to mom to leave out an ingredient in her oral interpretation…a pound of ground beef browned, can of mixed vegetables drained, can of tomato soup (must be Campbell’s), salt and pepper, and a dash of chili powder…yup, the stinker left out the chili powder instructions! Put into casserole dish and top with cubed and buttered white bread and throw it in the oven. Oh, I used to love the crunch bread cubes on top! Yumm!
I can still see us girls trying to make these recipes in our tiny little kitchen, mom with the patience of Job through all the giggling, and probably nervous as hell one of us would cut or burn ourselves (yeah, I’m the one known for that). Funny how you remember things like that some +40 years later….and yes, we earned our badge!
The Collector
I’m a great collector of recipes and cookbooks, to the point that I recently culled out about half, keeping only those books and recipes I really love. But the funny part of that collection craziness is that I don’t follow recipes, except for baking or candy. I mean, I scan for ingredients for just two purposes, 1) do I have them; 2) do I like them. From there, I just make it up!
I’ve come to know what many things taste like, whether it’s an herb or spice, ethnic ingredient, meat, fruit or vegetable. Let’s face it, that’s all that really goes into cooking…a bit of this and that to make it delicious. What I really love is to pull different combinations together to see how they taste. For example, using what’s traditionally baked goods flavor on meats and vegetables, or adding warm herbs to sweet cookies.
How I Actually Cook
So here’s the real kicker…while I pretty good a dissecting the flavors I’m tasting, I mostly cook by smell. How crazy is that? When I’m “just makin’ shit up”, I use or increase ingredients purely by smell. It’s only after it smells great that I actually taste it to see if it tastes great, too.
The only time that technique failed me was when my sinuses were hosed up. I’d suddenly lost my sense of smell and taste…like totally gone. That’s not a good thing for someone who loves to cook…by smell. What’s worse, I lost them right before Thanksgiving. We always host family Thanksgiving at our home, so you can imagine my panic when I had no smell or taste! After a trip to the doctor, being diagnosed with messed up sinuses, medications…aaand… a trip to an allergist, I’ve been right as rain since then…thank God!
The real challenge comes in when friends ask me for the recipe for something. Before Christmas last year, my dear friend asked me for my meatball recipe. How do you explain how to make something that has no recipe, has a certain “feel” to it to be right, and you can’t exactly taste test as you’re mixing it up? Then she asked me about my red sauce…OY VEY! That was a real toughy because that’s 100% by smell and whatever is handy in the pantry! I did my best to give her recipes for both, and apparently it worked. Both were a hit with her family.
Anyone Can Cook
Too many people claim they “can’t cook.” I call BS on that! Anyone can cook. The key is to start somewhere. If that means you need to learn how to measure properly, start there. If you need to follow a recipe exactly to the letter, so be it. Ask a friend or family member to show you how, or take a class at your local technical college. There are so many avenues for learning to cook. Once you get started with the basics, the sky will be your limit…I guarantee it! There’s no need to be fancy or complicated. Learn what you love to eat.
The best piece of advice I can give is, learn to enjoy the ritual of cooking. There’s a sense of peace when you’re weighing, measuring and stirring. What a great way to detach when you put your focus on cooking instead of the craziness of day-to-day. And, there is real joy in serving your friends and family something that’s delicious that you made with your own hands. Much like a painter taking pride in her art, take pride in your culinary creation.
Who Needs a Recipe?
As you look at recipes on this site, you might say, “Gee, that looks familiar.” It’s true, some recipes might look familiar. But that’s only because I’ve taken pieces or parts of one recipe, and combined them with two or three other recipes to make it my own. Or, “Gee, that tastes like something I’ve had.” That’s because I’ve tasted something at a restaurant and tried to replicate it.
So, how did I learn to cook? One day I earned a Girl Scout badge…
