I am not a gifted cook.
There is such a thing, I believe.
People who shop for food and are inspired.
People whose brains are bursting with new food ideas.
People who can look into a fridge filled with random ingredients, and then concoct a delicious dinner that uses all that assorted food.
That's just not who I am, though.
I can cook, certainly. I do that almost every single day.
And I can bake.
But the successes I experience in the kitchen are not the result of some special gift that has been bestowed upon me.
And that should be an encouragement to you. Proper cooking is not a skill that can belong only to those for whom it comes naturally.
No, anyone can cook.
As my mom likes to say, if you can read, you can cook.
I would add that if you're willing to practice and you've got good recipes, you can cook.
I've been practicing in the kitchen since my early teen years, but I haven't produced any new, exciting creations. I just follow recipes.
And you can do that too.
Will you be a little slow at first? Yes. Will you botch some things? Yep.
But if you hang in there, and if you read and follow the instructions, there's no reason for you to say, "I can't cook."
_________________________________
Pictured food in order of appearance:
Cook's Grilled Fajitas (I haven't shared this recipe)
Spinach Salad, which just follows a basic formula (Spinach, some fruit, some nuts, plus cheese if you like.). And I got the idea for that from my friend Laura. See? Not creative.
_________________________________
Today's 365 post: Know what's surprising in this picture?
Joshua's 365 post: Manekineko
I totally agree that anyone can cook! My mom is heralded within our family as a fabulous cook, but she says that the only thing she's particularly gifted about is choosing her recipes. And having made many of her recipes myself, I believe it! There's no big secret to my mom's cooking (though over time any cook will develop an intuitive sense of which spices go well together, etc), she just follows reputable recipes and they turn out great. My cooking is the same way, though I do have creative bursts. I mostly just follow recipes, with some occasional tweaking.
Learning to cook can be intimidating, for sure. And even now, I occasionally cook a nasty meal.
I moved away from my mom (an amazing cook) in NY to my own apartment in Ukraine when I was 18, and I suddenly found myself needing to learn to cook (from scratch) if I wanted to eat. The first two recipes I wrote in my recipe book were for pancakes and for glorified scrambled eggs. Looking through my book a few days ago, I saw how the recipes have gotten increasingly more complex and flavorful. I'm not an amazing cook, but I've learned something over the last few years. Like you said, practice and a good recipe!
I used to say that- "Anyone can cook!" and "If you can read, you can cook!" Then someone told me how discouraging this was. I have a tendency to think that if I can do something, it must be simple. This is not always true, sometimes I can do things because I have had decades of training and experience. I have been cooking since I was three years old. My mother sat me on the counter to watch her cook as soon as I could sit up. I was independently planning and preparing meals by the time I was nine. Then I got married and have planned and prepared almost every meal we've eaten for the past ten years and counting. But I always took this for granted. I realized that when I would tell someone how easy it was to cook, this could make people who found cooking difficult feel stupid. In teaching other people to cook, I realized how many things I did without thinking about it. Recipes can be very confusing to people not accustomed to reading recipes. With experience, you can glance through a recipe and see immediately whether it will work or not. Choosing and following recipes really is a skill. Writing them is a whole other skill that many recipe-writers lack. Thankfully, we have the internet nowadays and you can google any cooking or baking term and there is probably a YouTube video demonstrating every possible technique. There are reviews posted on most every recipe online. So most everybody really can cook-- but most people do need more than just a recipe.
Oh dear. I didn't mean it to be discouraging. I meant it to be ENcouraging! 🙂 What I'm trying to point out is that cooking isn't a gift that's given to only a few select people...if you think that way, you won't feel like persevering (the first few flubs will be enough to make you quit.)
You're right that good recipes are important...I mentioned that in the last part of this post. But maybe a post on choosing good recipes would be in order. I'll work on that.
Oh, I did not think that you were trying to be discouraging at all. I always thought that telling people they could cook was encouraging, so I was really surprised when someone told me otherwise. So that's all. You're absolutely right in your post that good recipes + practice= good cook. But people who learned to cook as kids or teenagers have a huge advantage over people who are just learning by themselves as adults. It's never too late to learn, though!
As a college student I would sincerely appreciate a post on choosing good recipes. Though I've learned a lot from my mom, I've definitely made a few bad choices when it comes to recipes. I think tarynkay has a great point that the more you learn sooner, the better!
I remember always being in the kitchen, watching and "helping" as much as my perfectionist German mother would let me. When I was 10, I started making almost all of my family's meals. I'll never forget when my sister went off to college and she and her sorority sisters decided to bake cookies. She called me up and asked what it meant when the recipe said "cream the butter and sugar". None of them knew!! Thirty-four years later, I still love to cook bake and I'm so grateful that it's a skill that helps my family, both from an economic standpoint and a health standpoint. (And I can't sew to save my life, so I'm always impressed by people who possess that talent!)
I am just the same. I always wished I could just look at ingredients and create an outstanding meal but alas, I cannot. I usually have to have some sort of recipe in mind to cook. I rarely stick exactly to a recipe (unless baking) and the end products are usually good but I am a recipes girl also.
This is so true! All you need to do is follow the recipe! It's that simple. So many people I run across say they do not cook. I always want to ask them, well how do you eat?
Great post! I was so nervous about whether I could cook for my future husband before we were married. I knew how important good food was to him, but I had never gotten a lot of practice at home. My husband-t0-be's mother, at the time, told me, "All you have to do is WANT to cook, and you will. It will be fine." That advice gave me courage, and armed with some observation of other good cooks, and a few great recipes, I knocked my new hubby's socks off as soon as we got back from our honeymoon with a beef and pepper stir fry that he still remembers to this day. 🙂 Ditto what you said about being slow at first and having a few mess-ups, but it was all part of the learning process.
I am considered a talented and flexible cook, and very little of what I make turns out badly. People ask me for recipes and to bring home-cooked foods to fundraisers and parties. I once lost to myself in a recipe contest, coming in both first and second.
It was not always so.
I learned to cook as an adult, in response to (thankfully temporary) poverty. I relied primarily on three books: "The Joy of Cooking" to learn the hows and whys of cooking, as well as as my comprehensive recipe book[1]; "365 Ways to Cook Chicken" for chicken recipes, that being our primary animal protein (it's simple and basic and I still use it); and Jacqueline Heriteau's "A Feast of Soups" because soup is tasty and cheap and warming in our under-heated drafty apartment. My roommates had a scattering of other cookbooks, I watched cooking shows, checked cookbooks out of the library, and haunted used book stores.
A terrific used bookstore find was "Half a Can of Tomato Paste" by Jean Anderson. Designed to use up the bits leftover (ergo the title), it's organized by leftover - eggs, bread, cabbage, etc - and the index is very thorough. It's out of print and recommend it to any frugal cook; I see many copes for $1 plus shipping on http://www.alibris.com
Mostly I practiced. Practice makes perfect. At first it's laborious and possibly painful, but it gets easier. Mistakes are our teachers.
If you're just starting out, I strongly recommend starting with a single cuisine. This reduces both the number of techniques and the number of new ingredients/spices to buy. Pick something you like. One good place to start is Tex-Mex[2], which is tasty, usually simple, inexpensive, and often healthy. FYI, it's hard to do good stir-fry on home stoves because the heat source isn't intense enough, and IMHO practically impossible to do on an electric stove although YMMV.
[1] There are many more resources available now. Lists available upon request.
[2] I don't Mexican, which has a dozen sub-cuisines.
PS: Mistakes happen. It's ok. They happen to everyone.
I have that book, "365 Ways to Cook Chicken" as well. That little spiral-bound book has gotten so much more use than many other cookbooks I own. Not because ti is an indispensable reference (I have a few others for that) but for precisely the same reason you described: Chicken is still the en vogue protein for dinner in America.
I wanted to buy it for a friend who was learning to cook more than microwave dinners and I was sad to find it was out of print.
On Alibris.com, it's available for as little as $1 + shipping.
I personally cannot follow a recipe to save my life. I see them as lists of ingredients only. I also do not measure stuff. And can come up with a meal off the top of my head. It has always been this way, and I didn't learn it from my mom because she only uses recipes.
Please don't hate me.
I think there is a lot to be said for knowing basic cooking techniques, because I have heard many people say " I am starting to cook at home so not to eat out so much, send me some easy recipes". But they have no idea what it means to chop, saute, braise, deglaze, etc. Or the recipe calls for one ingredient they don't have and they get stuck, not knowing how to substitute or modify the dish to make it work.
I think more people would benefit overall if they had some basic cooking skills rather than just relying on recipes because you can be more flexible that way.
I think you're one of those gifted people, then! 🙂 And I don't hate you.
My basic Better Homes and Gardens cookbook has a section about chopping and mincing and sauteeing, and I always recommend that new cooks get a cookbook like that.
That Better Homes and Garden Cookbook is great for those just starting out in the kitchen. I learned how to cut up a whole chicken from it many years ago. My 18 year old tells me she knows how to cook, you just need to know how to read. She obviously grew up with a Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. She makes the best Crepes ever.
I think with many people they say they can't cook. Read the recipe and try. It is really not that hard. For those just learning though, don't start with complicated recipes.
Sounds like a good post Kristen, the basics of reading a recipe, the basics in measuring etc. Many people do not know the basics, which is what keeps them from trying.
Cook's Illustrated is a nice resource also, and their sister magazine Cook's Country. They talk about the how's and why's behind technique and prep skills. Their product testers are awesome also. Some of the recipes can be complex, but they also break down basics like scrambled eggs so even a beginner can get great eggs!
I actually pay for access to Cook's country, and have gotten the magazines in the past for Cook's Ill. TOTALLY WORTH IT. I have their 30 min meals cookbook and it is fantastic, all real food, from scratch, in 30 min. I really want their crock pot book too. Maybe for Christmas.
By Kristen's definition I am a gifted cook but I'm not sure I agree with her definition. I'd say I am an experienced cook. Also? I like to research and find patterns, which helped me learn the hows & whys (whies??). Which in turn helps me figure out substitutions and rescue failing dishes.
But really? It's mostly practice.
Actually I'm not sure what I think a gifted cook is. Thoughts for alternate definitions?
Your food always looks great. It doesn't have to be five star to be fabulous. I spent exactly 14 minutes on dinner last night and it was still so great.
That's why I really like baking. Sure, you can screw up, but you also have to follow the recipe, there's no deviating from it, and that makes it easy for me! My hangup is usually with the number of ingredients required in recipes, especially when I'm working on a small grocery budget and don't have those things at home.
I have found that watch youtube videos about certain skills has helped me even more than reading a recipe. Things like roasting a turkey, bread making, certain desserts, soup, etc. There are so many on the internet so if you want to try something, watch a few videos too and that way you can see how its supposed to look every step of the way.
Also, my friends think I'm a great cook, but really, its because 1) they never cook anything that doesn't come in a box themselves so even pancakes from scratch are impressive and 2) they only see the things that turn out!! I've had my share of rock solid cookies or muffins that taste like baking soda or chickpeas that I didn't cook properly that gave me food poisoning. Practice makes perfect, and I think that not putting too much pressure on yourself helps. Don't wait until you have a special occasion to make cupcakes. Practice the week before just for fun.
I made a version of your Shrimp Viennese last night. I didn't have cooked rice, so I just used the same ingredients (except flour) and made a risotto. It was delicious!!!! The version using cooked rice sounds quicker but this was still a one pot meal.
I agree completely! The internet is my BFF when it comes to cooking! Seriously, it's like there's not need for cookbooks anymore because all the recipes are online with pictures and reviews. My problem with cooking is that things never look/sound tasty, so I just end up baking. But man, can I bake haha!
Chris Kimball said that today's cook had the problem of too many recipes. He says cooks used to have general knowledge but specialize in a few great dishes. That helped me understand home cooking a lot better and I could concentrate on having a few speciality items that my family craves.
I also have found that an overabundance of variety can put off little appetites.
And I do agree that if you can read, you can cook. Betty Crocker spells it out. You just have to be willing to have some flops while you get experience. Something most people don't have the patience for. You also have to understand that food prepared at home should not just try to imitate restaurant food.
Kristen -
You may not think you cook 5-star cuisine, but your photography of seemingly simple fare is first rate. 😉 Viva la natural lighting!
I am one of those people who has a hard time following a recipe. I'll follow it verbatim and then have something turn out horribly wrong. My last failed recipe attempt was for nanaimo bars. The layers didn't firm up the way they should and it was a gloppy gooey mess. I had to bring it to work for a birthday and was downright embarassed.
Nowadays I'll glance at a recipe to see some of the ingredients they used and then just formulate my own based on what I have in the kitchen.
I have NEVER been able to follow a recipe and have them come out the way yours do. Also? I have NEVER been able to keep my food budget within reason when trying a bunch of different recipes. I always end up spending a lot more because of ingredients I don't have. Now I just cook based on what is in my pantry.
You definitely deserve a million pages worth of credit for your frugal cooking skills. I am not able to replicate it without a lot and a lot of work 🙂
What a great inspiration!
I am one of those people who can just "throw something together" and I realize it is a gift, for which I am humbly grateful. But I believe that anyone can learn to cook well. It just takes patience and PRACTICE. You also need to start with simple recipes to build your confidence. Don't grab Julia Child's French cookbook and expect to master it! Find a cookbook with photographs and simple ingredients and start there. Watch the Food Network! For fun watch Disney's Ratatouille. As Chef Gusteau would say, "Anyone Can Cook!" 🙂 PS: Want a simple recipe that will wow all your friends? Take one block of (softened) cream cheese and 1 jar of your favorite salsa. Mix together. Serve with tortilla chips. People will LOVE it and they will never know it was two simple ingredients combined. Start simple, and PRACTICE! Happy cooking!
--I decided I had officially learned how to cook when I was able to start making suitable substitutions. I grew up in a small town in KY but married an East Indian. I can cook Indian food better than I can cook American food. If I can learn to cook Indian food, it is possible to learn to cook. 🙂
--I asked my aunt once if she was a good cook, and she said, "I can follow a recipe." (It took me a while to learn how to do even that. As in, one time I was making cookies at my parents' house, and my mom came in and saw me kneading the cookie dough, basically...both hands in the dough. I saw her face and said, "What? It said 'mix by hand." She said, "that just means to not use an electric mixer. You can still use a spoon."
--My dad says, "Everything is easy if you know how and have the right stuff." Sometimes the right stuff and the know-how is just having a good cookbook.
Ohhh, that's hilarious! "mix by hand" Hee.
I am not a good cook. I have trouble staying focused on a recipe, so you can guess how things turn out! My husband is the cook in our family, loves to cook, and is great at it. It will be a long time before I learn to cook, b/c he says he doesn't want to live through my "practicing"--which I'm totally fine with!
I never cooked a thing until I was midway through college and was off the meal plan. I had little money but I liked food, so cooking was the only way to go. My mom was 3000 miles away and none of my friends knew how to cook, so I started teaching myself by following the simplest best-reviewed recipes on allrecipes.com. Perseverance really is the key to developing any new skill. And the one nice thing about your own cooking, is that the fact that you made it yourself makes it taste automatically better!
One extra note: at that time I had not been used to going out to eat at restaurants very frequently so my home-cooked food always tasted quite good to me. I can see if you are very used to going out to eat that your initial attempts might not taste as good and you'd be tempted to give up. Stick to it! These days, I find that I often prefer my own food to restaurant food and usually go out for the social aspects.
My husband--before we were married-- was the one who taught me how to toss all sorts of unlikely things together to create really amazing concoctions, all of them yummy, too! It's not an art, just a willingness to see what comes of it! It helps if you're willing to eat anything too. LOL
I think everyone can cook, but I don't think everyone can bake bread, I really don't. Case in point: a former friend of mind, a professor with a Ph.D. who has written many textbooks, simply could not bake bread to save her life. She even failed with a bread machine.
For those who can't make any judgement calls about yeast, elasticity, doneness, volume, etc. I think breadmaking is pretty tricky.
LOL I had a coworker tell me once that anyone can sew if they can read - well I can read but if it's not a quilt then there could be trouble! I shied away from cooking - growing up it was either hotdogs or something out of a can or processed or it was from scratch - the 'from scratch' didn't have actual recipes and now my mom has passed and I still can't duplicate her biscuits 🙁 or her 'milk gravy'. baking in general hasn't been my thing and luckily I don't really 'need' anything baked like bakery stuff but it would be nice to know how. Even cake mixes or iffy with me (I blame the oven on those!) but even in college I was kinda lost on cooking . Me, my mom, her mother - we all LOVED cookbooks (I have tons of them!) and now thanks to the internet can save and print numerous recipes to pile up to 'try someday' and now blogs with recipes..weight watchers so a lot are healthy now. but I've found that with my time constraints I often stick to the tried and true recipes or a slight modification of them the most often. It seems a lot of new recipes are either failures, not-so-goods, good but what a lot of trouble...you know what I mean LOL! Also cooking just for myself I try to stick with stuff that I can eat again or freeze for later or make in small portions. I'm trying to complile these tried and true recipes or 'cooking plans' I guess they're called? you know when it's a simple technique like egg /potato/drained rotel/bacon breakfast taco so I don't forget that a few drained rotel tomatoes/salsa/peppers are good with diced potatoes in a breakfast taco...would be a good project for one of these days - already started but not sure why I stopped.
sometimes I think there must be something wrong with me - seems everyone wants variety in their meals yet I keep going back for the same thing most of the time! even stranger considering how much I love recipes.
I think I have that 365 ways to cook chicken! had no idea it was good! I'm prettty sure I got mine used on half.com or amazon.com or as someone else said alibris...plenty of sources for used cookbooks and a lot of libraries have them or have interlibrary loan.
love your blog!
Most people don't actually eat tons of different food all the time. I'm not a big fan of eating the same thing over and over, but even I have a set of tried-and-true!
For example, we eat the same thing for breakfast every day (fried or scrambled eggs and toast), my husband eats the same thing for lunch every day, I usually have up to three lunch variations in a week (lentils, soup and sandwich, sandwich and cooked cabbage this week!), then dinner is where the variety comes in. Even then, we always have pizza on Friday nights, we always have "breakfast for dinner" on Wednesdays, leftovers on Thursdays, so I really only have to come up with 4 meals each week.
I also think that some people are gifted cooks, just like some are gifted pianists. But everyone can learn to cook simple food, just like everyone can learn to play Mary Had a Little Lamb. Like anything else, the more you practice, the better you get. If you start by trying to prepare unfamiliar cuisine with unfamiliar ingredients and methods you will fail. There is no shame in learning how to make glorified scrambled eggs before moving on to something more complicated, in fact, it's smart. Even if your first batch of eggs is a failure, maybe especially so. You need to discover how ingredients react. Once you know that, you can move on. Julia Child was not born knowing how to cook. She made a point of learning.
Unfortunately, many people grew up in homes where no one cooked, so did not have the chance to learn a lot by simply observing. Don't repeat the mistake and leave your children and grandchildren at the mercy of overpriced restaurant or prepackaged commercial "food". We are only beginning to learn the unpleasant results of that kind of diet, to say nothing of the financial implications.
Well said!
My mother was the worst cook in the world, and also the best baker in the world. Seriously, I didn't know that roasts were supposed to be juicy and mashed potatoes shouldn't include black bits from the bottom of the pan where they burned on.
Now, at this late stage, I've started baking my own bread (thanks for the recipe, Kristen!). Being willing to have it flop really gave me the push to try, and my first loaves looked pretty good, and they did taste like Mother's bread! I've made a few loaves now and I'm seeing improvement every time.
I'm making stollen for Christmas! Hah!
I've always maintained that to be a good cook you need to enjoy eating. A well written recipe, correctly followed, is sufficient to enable the average person to produce a good dish, but it takes a fine palate and plenty of practice to elevate it to excellent. A good cook doesn't just follow a recipe but adjusts and adapts it to taste. Some people seem to be born with this ability. Others have to work at it. And I dare say that there are few who find it quite impossible.
Of course the best way to learn how to cook is by observing someone else, preferably a parent in the family kitchen, but I fear that happens less often than it used to.
I agree!
I taught a lot of my fellow students in college how to prepare basic meals. My most popular insight was that everyone makes the same basic mistakes as they learn how to cook - burning something that's baked, burning something that's cooked on the stove, letting a pot of something boil dry, overcooking meat.
Some of us just made most of those mistakes as children or teens! It's not that experienced cooks have never made those mistakes, they've just ALREADY made them and learned how to avoid them. So don't be afraid of making mistakes, just try to learn from them!
Yes, Remy and the chef (Ratatouille) would agree with you!
When my husband and I got married I was a horrible cook. That sweet man ate more overcooked, dried out chicken breasts than anyone should have too.
He came home one day with a Rachel Ray cookbook for me and I started watching Alton Brown on Food Network. I gained a lot of confidence in the kitchen and now five years later gone are the dried out chicken breasts and my husband has gained more weight than he cares to admit. Family and friends love coming for dinner and I take a lot of pleasure in putting a great meal on the table.
I think a lot of it is following a good recipe, but it's also having confidence in you abilities and understanding the science of cooking/baking (I thank Alton Brown for that). I still have failures from time to time, but they are a lot more rare.
Kristen,
My mantra has always been "anyone can cook!" Yes, it does take a lot of practice for some people, but your skill is determined by your desire to improve on the skill. I am also not a gifted cook, but many of the recipes I follow WITH DIRECTIONS (I need directions and exact measurements or I'm in trouble) turn out great. I may never create a new recipe or be able to toss a little bit of this and a little bit of that by memory, but I will continue cooking (and baking) because I really love to do it. Wow! I never thought I would say that.
I agree!! I was an awful cook when I first started (when I got married), and now after reading and trying lots of different recipes, and can cook fairly well.
I suggest that beginners start with really basic recipes and work their way up slowly.
I love your post! I want my family enjoy the meal I have created. I didn't realize cooking would be such a creative outlet for me.
Thank you for encouraging others.
I can relate! Whenever I get too confident and think I've got it all sussed I have a disaster. It's happened time and time again. It's a way of bringing you back down to earth!!! The fun is in the experimenting, so what if you have a bad day in the kitchen - you still gotta eat it 🙂