To Cook - Introduction

I love cooking. It combines science, culture, creativity, traditions, innovation, and love. Cooking has the potential to transform what is essential and mundane into an artistic and cathartic experience. Great cooking can be simple or almost incomprehensibly complex. Through cooking, we connect to people worldwide and throughout history. 

Cooking has things to fear. Everyone who cooks will burn themselves. A gas flame on a stove can reach over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. Everyone who will eventually cut themselves doing prep with knives. If you don’t clean surfaces and utensils well, handle foods safely and cook proteins to safe temperatures, you can get sick from food as a consequence of cooking. And you can mess up and make things inedible when you cook.  

Mistakes are a feature of cooking. For example, eggshells fall into bowls when eggs are cracked; food gets undercooked; a dish tastes too salty, an omelet apart, or an ingredient gets burned. Cooking requires you to see mistakes as opportunities to be creative, to problem solves, and most importantly, to learn. A big piece of eggshell is a perfect tool to get eggshell out of a bowl. If a piece of chicken looks cooked on the outside and still isn’t done, let it in the oven. Sometimes all you need is a little sugar or water when a dish is too salty, and if an omelet falls apart, now you got scrambled eggs.  

Cooking is a language of love for others and oneself. When you cook for someone else, you are saying I care about your well-being on a primal level. You are contributing to their health, mood, and spirit, not just for that one meal. Food prepared one day affects how bodies develop over time, and the cooking for someone adds to a feeling of care and self-worth for those served that resonate throughout a whole life. 

When we cook for ourselves, it’s a moment of creation and self-care. When we create things, it reminds us that we are powerful, and there is a satisfaction that comes from creating beauty that enriches life and the human spirit. When the act of creation brings us the sustenance to thrive, it is self-care on a seemingly basic level, but it can transcend and makes us feel love for ourselves.  

So this summer I’m going to write about cooking and food. It’s an important part of my life that I haven’t written about on this blog. I’m going to get into some food memories, the fundamentals of cooking that I follow, and some of my favorite things to cook.  

Tonight, I’m going to braise some cabbage in butter, a magical dish. The cabbage steams with its moisture, and the butter enhances the flavor of the cabbage wonderfully. It takes time like forty-five minutes, but it’s worth the time. Next, I’m making steamed rice, cooked in a time-honored Chinese process. The ritual of washing the rice and measuring the amount of water in the pot makes me feel proud to be Asian. Finally, I have some chicken thighs to cook. I may fry them up to make chicken teriyaki, but if I have some broth, I might make some soup. We’ll see. 

Friday’s, cooking and me.