Jean MeriamWant to be a Great Cook? Find your Voice.
November 12th 2008 21:50
Good cooking is a lot like writing. You need to find your voice. Otherwise known as style, your voice often defines what people come to expect from you as cook. The way to find that voice? Practice, practice, practice.
Experiments aside, we often fall into a pattern in cooking. One friend is the restaurateur type. When I dine at her home I've come to expect at least a 3 course meal: salad, an entree and dessert. She has offered these so many times that for her to change now would be a complete shock to my palate, something akin to opening a Stephen King book and discovering a Harlequinish romance inside the covers.
Another friend never cooks. She and her children eat out seemingly 3 times a day, 7 days a week. When we get together for dinner it is always at the last restaurant she has discovered.I would be wary of eating one of her home cooked meals.
My own style seems to have fallen into oven cooking. Rarely do I fry meat or anything else. Even my homemade stews do their time inside my well-worn roaster. What my friends and I have in common is that we have each found our style, what works best for us and allows us to get meals on the table with little stress or wasted time.
At one time my style was frenzied and inauthentic, like a twelve year old writing for the teacher. I copied other cooks. I attempted to cook like my mother, even my mother-in-law. One week we ate gourmet, the next week it would be jambalaya or southern fried chicken. All good food for the right cook, but it just wasn't me. Without joy or authenticity nothing lasted long. I dove from one style to another, flitting about in the kitchen, usually uncertain what to cook. Dinner was frequently late or unpalatable.
Without voice you end up at McDonald's at 6 PM, waiting in line with all those other people who had no idea what to cook. So how to find your style? Sometimes all you have to do is look inside. What do you like to eat? What, when you cook it, leaves you with a satisfied smile? Or if not with a smile, then at least not cursing the scorched pots and flopped souffle.
If the time spent in your kitchen is leaving you resentful of the hours robbed from your life, you are not being authentic.
Sometimes it takes experimentation to find your voice. Try a variety of recipes until you find enough that you enjoy cooking to give you at least a week's worht of meals. You will probably find these recipes have much in common perhaps an ease of cooking, or a variety of spices and ingredients you enjoy working with. Eventually you will find creating these meals becomes as much a part of who you are as the way you talk to your best friend. When this happens you will know you have found your own authentic voice.
Experiments aside, we often fall into a pattern in cooking. One friend is the restaurateur type. When I dine at her home I've come to expect at least a 3 course meal: salad, an entree and dessert. She has offered these so many times that for her to change now would be a complete shock to my palate, something akin to opening a Stephen King book and discovering a Harlequinish romance inside the covers.
Another friend never cooks. She and her children eat out seemingly 3 times a day, 7 days a week. When we get together for dinner it is always at the last restaurant she has discovered.I would be wary of eating one of her home cooked meals.
My own style seems to have fallen into oven cooking. Rarely do I fry meat or anything else. Even my homemade stews do their time inside my well-worn roaster. What my friends and I have in common is that we have each found our style, what works best for us and allows us to get meals on the table with little stress or wasted time.
At one time my style was frenzied and inauthentic, like a twelve year old writing for the teacher. I copied other cooks. I attempted to cook like my mother, even my mother-in-law. One week we ate gourmet, the next week it would be jambalaya or southern fried chicken. All good food for the right cook, but it just wasn't me. Without joy or authenticity nothing lasted long. I dove from one style to another, flitting about in the kitchen, usually uncertain what to cook. Dinner was frequently late or unpalatable.
Without voice you end up at McDonald's at 6 PM, waiting in line with all those other people who had no idea what to cook. So how to find your style? Sometimes all you have to do is look inside. What do you like to eat? What, when you cook it, leaves you with a satisfied smile? Or if not with a smile, then at least not cursing the scorched pots and flopped souffle.
Sometimes it takes experimentation to find your voice. Try a variety of recipes until you find enough that you enjoy cooking to give you at least a week's worht of meals. You will probably find these recipes have much in common perhaps an ease of cooking, or a variety of spices and ingredients you enjoy working with. Eventually you will find creating these meals becomes as much a part of who you are as the way you talk to your best friend. When this happens you will know you have found your own authentic voice.
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