I'm A Foodie
I'm a foodie. I'm a huge foodie. And I love to cook. Which is good because my OH doesn't know how to boil an egg properly, let alone do toast without burning it. Luckily for both of us I paid attention and watched my mother diligently (though I didn't know this is what I was doing) and learnt all her tricks. My dad less so, as he mostly did the roasts and specialty breads.
As a result of watching them I knew I had the basics. And, like them both, I've never been scared at changing up a recipe, which I see as a basic template from which to create something else, something that will suit my palate more. And yes, I know, some recipes you just don't mess with. Others, though, just beg to be personalised to taste. That's how they were first created to begin with.
And so, where a recipe might include chilli peppers, something I cannot eat, I will experiment with other heat giving spices coming up with my own combo to recreate a dish to my liking.
Sometimes this works, sometimes the dish is inedible to the point it ends up in the bin. Although it's true to say, the OH who has a cast iron stomach, will probably do their best to eat it regardless. I have no idea how they're able to eat what they eat half the time. But that's a whole other post for another day.
The upshot from all this experimentation is that I have a fairly good idea at what works together and what doesn't and, just recently, dazzled my sister in law and husband at a dinner I cooked by seemingly haphazardly just throwing stuff into pan and having it taste edible. So much so, my sister in law wants cooking lessons to up their own game. Thing is, what I've learnt has taken me not just years but possibly decades of trial and error and practise to do. It doesn't easily translate into a couple of lessons on a weekend.
That isn't to say, I can't write up what I do in a recipe. I've done that for her and hope she gets it when I say a dash, or a dribble, or a pinch and that she needs to work out what works for her, and her taste buds. The important thing is to taste at every step of the process and make sure that what you're doing tastes right for you.
And you, are you competent in the kitchen, or do you just get by?