On Cooking: One Wannabe-Home Cook's History Re Cooking So Far

Image courtesy of marin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net. 

In a word: patchy.

1. I grew up eating whatever came out of the kitchen, but I'd never actually ventured near it except to lick the fudge batter off the mixing bowl when someone made Brownies. Something like that.

2. One day I decided to learn cooking, because why not?


(Side note: Learning -- the act -- when you think about it, is fascinating. E.g.: you start out knowing, say, zilch, and then you gain know-how. Learning how to walk when all you did before was crawl = awesome. And it took you how many weeks/months/wait, my Google search says it happens anywhere between 9 to 17 months. See?)

Image courtesy of marin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

3. Our yaya, tolerating my presence in the kitchen, showed me the ropes. Like how to fry an egg. How to cook rice. How to cook fried rice (we do a lot of frying). If she had the time she'd even let me cook dinner under her supervision.

But the problem was she was one of those people who never used recipes, who felt their way around a dish, tasting and adding a little more of this or that. To a wannabe-novice home cook, that flew over my head. How are you supposed to know how much to add, or which to add? I gave up writing down recipes, since hey, it's never always three spoonfuls of soy sauce you put into an adobo. Sometimes it's four. Or five. It just depends.

Not to disparage her, of course. Her priority was and always will be cooking dinner, not teaching me how.

Result: I got to concoct x varieties of fried egg and rice dishes, because seasoning with anything besides a pinch of salt takes too much time and effort.

4. And so, I later took to the internet, where cooking videos, sites and blogs abound, which my brain, corrupted by twenty-odd years of formal schooling, would probably take to more easily. And I think I found a good one: The Reluctant Gourmet, which is run by a home cook and has a lot of things needed by people like me. For Dummies articles about basic cooking methods (who knew roasting and baking were more or less the same thing?). How to pick the right cookware. Things like this go a long way.

And while I won't necessarily be shopping for new cookware or ingredients the typical Filipino household wouldn't have just to make anything in the site recipe list, I now have a steadier footing. Gone are the days of having to make do with chips and toast.