How to Love to Cook
I got all wiggly while reading a NYT blog on our culture and cooking. Not because I disagreed, but because I agreed so much that I was inching toward the edge of my seat closer and closer to the screen as I read each paragraph, eventually shouting, YEAH! YOU GO, MARK BITTMAN!
Bittman writes, in a world where we focus so much attention on so many food options (organic, gluten-free, low fat, vegetarian, fair trade) often we forget about the most common choice- cooking. He shares his process and backs it up against restaurant eating. As a food lovah, I couldn’t help but wonder WHY his post was even needed. Who in the universe is not cooking and why for the holy sake of garlic mashed potatoes aren't they doing it?
I LOVE to cook, and I’m of the belief that if you don’t love to, you COULD love to. I’ve watched a peanut butter sandwich connoisseur turn into a roasted red pepper and sausage pizza inventor in his college apartment, a casserole-raised friend turn into risotto stirring professional and a Ramen noodle guru focus on hand rolling egg rolls with perfection.
I think it’s easy to write off cooking with the mindset that it takes too much time, you need to know how to do it and it costs too much money. Of course, I’m of the sick mentality that slowly simmering a roux is more fun than lounging on the couch and a new brick of expensive cheese is more exciting than a new pair of shoes, but really any Rachel Ray wannabe can confidently debunk these myths with a stack of short but sweet basic recipes.
But please, let’s for a hot second move past the fact that cooking does not have to be hard, and focus on the enjoyment elements. Cooking = playing, building, creating, exploring, science, magic and eventually the gratification and pride in eating a yummy self-created thing. Find me a human who isn’t interested in any of those things, and I’ll show them a basic baking soda/vinegar bottle rocket. That kind of magic happens ALLTHETIME with cooking, and there isn’t one creature on the face of the Earth who at some point in time didn’t think that was cool. Not one.
After watching friends, family and myself overcome bland pallets and a common disinterest in the entire idea of a kitchen, I’ve come to realize what the heart of the issue is. The common write offs for cooking are no more than a masking of fear. The grocery store is a big place when you don’t know you way around it (I've totally gotten lost there), and there are multiple ways to set your house on fire when using basic kitchen gear (I've most definitely done that). Those unknowns (plus the unknown of your own tastes!) are frightening.
But cooking soooo doesn’t mean you have to craft up marvelous things, or even be good at it for that matter. The harder you hold on to fear the less able you are to free your creativity. When you make the choice to cook, you inadvertently make the choice to take ownership of your five senses. Honestly, nuking a frozen pizza verses whipping up my brother’s red pepper and sausage version is like calling the harsh fluorescent glow from a cheap desk lamp a beautiful sunset; and blindly engorging on yumminess from a restaurant without thinking about what you’re eating is like claiming you’ve been to French because you own a raspberry beret.
Cook. And live a little.
Bittman writes, in a world where we focus so much attention on so many food options (organic, gluten-free, low fat, vegetarian, fair trade) often we forget about the most common choice- cooking. He shares his process and backs it up against restaurant eating. As a food lovah, I couldn’t help but wonder WHY his post was even needed. Who in the universe is not cooking and why for the holy sake of garlic mashed potatoes aren't they doing it?
I LOVE to cook, and I’m of the belief that if you don’t love to, you COULD love to. I’ve watched a peanut butter sandwich connoisseur turn into a roasted red pepper and sausage pizza inventor in his college apartment, a casserole-raised friend turn into risotto stirring professional and a Ramen noodle guru focus on hand rolling egg rolls with perfection.
I think it’s easy to write off cooking with the mindset that it takes too much time, you need to know how to do it and it costs too much money. Of course, I’m of the sick mentality that slowly simmering a roux is more fun than lounging on the couch and a new brick of expensive cheese is more exciting than a new pair of shoes, but really any Rachel Ray wannabe can confidently debunk these myths with a stack of short but sweet basic recipes.
But please, let’s for a hot second move past the fact that cooking does not have to be hard, and focus on the enjoyment elements. Cooking = playing, building, creating, exploring, science, magic and eventually the gratification and pride in eating a yummy self-created thing. Find me a human who isn’t interested in any of those things, and I’ll show them a basic baking soda/vinegar bottle rocket. That kind of magic happens ALLTHETIME with cooking, and there isn’t one creature on the face of the Earth who at some point in time didn’t think that was cool. Not one.
After watching friends, family and myself overcome bland pallets and a common disinterest in the entire idea of a kitchen, I’ve come to realize what the heart of the issue is. The common write offs for cooking are no more than a masking of fear. The grocery store is a big place when you don’t know you way around it (I've totally gotten lost there), and there are multiple ways to set your house on fire when using basic kitchen gear (I've most definitely done that). Those unknowns (plus the unknown of your own tastes!) are frightening.
But cooking soooo doesn’t mean you have to craft up marvelous things, or even be good at it for that matter. The harder you hold on to fear the less able you are to free your creativity. When you make the choice to cook, you inadvertently make the choice to take ownership of your five senses. Honestly, nuking a frozen pizza verses whipping up my brother’s red pepper and sausage version is like calling the harsh fluorescent glow from a cheap desk lamp a beautiful sunset; and blindly engorging on yumminess from a restaurant without thinking about what you’re eating is like claiming you’ve been to French because you own a raspberry beret.
Cook. And live a little.