I'm a spoilt lazy man
In the past, I've always talked about how much of a terrible cook I am but that wasn't me being entirely honest to you guys. There were times in the past where I was forced to cook for my family because I was mostly the only one at home back in the day, and although a lot of those food were terrible and my family had to drink enough water to force it down their throat, I soon started getting better at it.
One of my main challenges back in the day had been calculating the perfect amount of salt to add in every meal and of course most times I ended up adding more than I needed, until my dad had advised me on it, telling me that it was better I added little salt than too much salt, because one had a remedy and the other didn't.
Anyways, although my mom made me learn how to cook by force, I was only asked to prepare the basic things, things like pasta, rice and beans, while the other sophisticated things like soup and stew I left for the professional, my mom. But that was many years ago and I soon stopped entering the kitchen after I got to school because I had a roommate who was way better than me at the kitchen.
Anyways, it didn't take long for all of the hardwork done on me by my mom to wash away because just like everything else, I forgot how to do anything because I hadn't done it in a long time, or at least that was what I thought until few days ago when my kid brother came visiting.
The plan was for him to stay with me for some few days until my aunt was back from her travels (he stays with her) and I knew that during his time here, there was no way we were going to eat all day at a restaurant and it was mainly for two reasons, the first being the cost and the second reason being that even if I had all of the money to afford the meals, there were no opened restaurant because this is a student area and the moment the students go for holidays, everything else shuts down because there's no one to buy from them.
So with all that in mind, I had taken some amount of money and went to the market to get some groceries, the plan was either I learnt how to cook on YouTube or I call my female friends to assist me over the phone with the process, but surprisingly I ended up not needing any of that because it turned out that when you have your back against the wall, your brain starts working as it should because mine did.
Suddenly I started to remember all of those early mornings where my mom had to wake me up just to read out the recipes and process I needed to make certain meals before leaving for her shop and I soon found myself in the kitchen doing magic. It was crazy but my confidence returned the moment my bro tested the meal and praised me for it and I could tell he meant it because he wasn't the type to say something is good when it wasn't, especially when it's just the two of us in the room.
Well, that whole experience taught me that although I might not know how to cook a lot of dishes, the only reason I had refused to cook for myself all this time wasn't because I had no idea about anything in the kitchen but just simply because I've been spoilt with so much free food and help in the kitchen that I had somehow tricked myself into believing that I'm a dummy when it comes to cooking anything.
And also because I'm lazy.. Let's not forget that.
Yeah my roommate in year one had this problem. He doesn't cook at all at home and I was his cook in school but life forced him to cook. Actually his first food was bad 😂 but he began improving and now he is better
Happens to the best of us 😅
In my opinion cooking is one kind of art and cooker is the artist. And to be better in art we need to practice and with time cooking skill also increase and the measurements of ingredients is very important in cooking. And without practice it's difficult. Your past experience helped you a lot I think. By the way, till now, all my cooked food were decent and I also have good confidence in my cooking skill.
In cooking there are an unofficial rule and it's " You can give ingredients less but if you give more then your cook are in trouble 😅".
I actually do agree with you on cooking being an art, probably why I'm a terrible cook because I don't know nothing about being an artist 😂😂
It is a fact that man has become very lazy nowadays and the life is going on in the same way and it is also a fact that if a man can cook his own food then it is a very good thing for a man. You don't have to listen to what you want and a person makes and eats what he wants and enjoys life.
Thank you for reading 🙂.
Most welcome dear.
Glad to see you have your cooking confidence back :)
I never had to cook while living at home with parents and only learnt to hack something together when I had to live as a bachelor. I used to have the same trouble when making lentils, putting in too much salt. Even though it was just me who had to eat it, it was difficult to eat oversalty food. The trick taught to me by mother over the old landlines was "put in half a potato and boil for some more time. The potato will absorb a lot of the salt" So I ended up being the one who always had a potato in his lentils (daal as they call it in India) Sadly I don't cook much nowadays as my wife is a fabulous cook and I get by with helping with the cutting and dicing. I hope that I am able to remember some fundamentals like you did, whenever I am called to put together a dish :)
I guess everyone has a trick of their own in their cook book.. As for me, what I do to measure the salt when cooking is to add a little bit of water to the food and then add some salt, not too much but enough for me to know that if I left it that way, the food would be considered salty... Then I add more water (the required amount of water needed for that meal), thereby diluting the salt and making the meal taste perfect 😅.
That's a neat trick.