Of course, online quizzes aren't the best place to look for your true self, that much has been obvious to me since my pre-teen years when I would steal my mother's Cosmopolitan magazines and secretly take the romantic compatibility tests. But sometimes those quizzes do ask questions that lead one to a deeper consideration. How would I describe myself as a cook? What kind of cook am I?
It didn't take long for me to discover that in no way was I just one kind of cook. In fact, looking back on that list (generous, innovative, competitive, healthy, methodical) I would've had to click all five choices if I were to be perfectly honest and would probably need several other choices if I really wanted to present a complete picture. (Lazy, meandering, romantic, practical, curious, and accident prone come immediately to mind.)
But thinking about it even further, the list expands and lengthens because on some days I'm a confident expert, knowing exactly what I am doing and on others, I haven't a clue. Sometimes I'm the kind of cook who has crackers and cheese for dinner and on others, it's an elaborate soup with fresh baked bread and a garlicky side salad. Yes, Mr Whitman, I do indeed contradict myself. Yes I am large, and yes, I contain multitudes.
While it's very important to know ourselves, to be aware of our strengths and weaknesses, we also have to be careful not to limit ourselves by our own stories. Declaring yourself to be an impatient cook and therefore not suited for bread making or too clumsy of a cook to bone a fish may be (somewhat) true but it's also true that you can be an impatient bread maker and let the bread making teach you patience, or allow the fishbones to show you grace. In other words, don't let your stories stop you from trying something new, something outside of your usual patterns. Don't let your ideas about who you are dictate who you are.
I leave you with a challenge: do something against your character today. Try being the kind of cook you're not. Allow yourself to be sloppy if you're neat, or dabble in modernist cuisine if you're usually all about the roast chicken and bread salad. Think you're a baker and not a cook? Then it's Bouillabaisse for you today! Do you never measure anything? Then find a recipe and follow it exactly. Watch what comes up for you when your stories arise and watch what happens when you let them go. Notice where there's freedom. Do you find it in the story or is it in what happens when you let the story go?
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Q: Almost two years ago, I lost my mother she was 54 and I was 25. Many of her personal items were also lost during this time and I've always been heartbroken over losing her handwritten recipes and books. She was a wonderful cook, and especially loved to cut out recipes from newspapers and magazines.
Welcome to our new series Expert Essentials for the Home Cook where we will interview chefs and other food professionals about their top five things a home cook should have, know, do, or understand to be a great cook. We begin our series with Preeti Mistry, a Top Chef contestant in 2009 and a former Google chef. Read on for Preeti's top five tips for a home cook looking to build flavor.
Preeti trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London, where she was born, and currently lives in Oakland, CA. She is in the process of opening a restaurant in the Bay Area called Juhu Beach Club where she will serve Indian street and snack food. Here she offers five great ways for home cooks to boost flavor.
Fluffy fragrant rice, richly spiced vegetables, and a scattering of raisins, cashews, and herbs make up this colorful and warming biryani. Whether you eat it as a one-dish meal or as part of an Indian feast, it's well worth the effort to prepare.
Biryani of which there are dozens of variations in India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East is comprised of layers of rice and vegetables or meat. The first time I made vegetable biryani at home, I hesitated at the long list of ingredients and multi-step cooking process. No wonder it's one of the more expensive items on the menu at my local Indian restaurant! But I soon came to appreciate the special nature of this dish and, truly, it seems more complicated than it really is.
When making biryani, I recommend using Basmati rice; the long grains of of this rice are perfectly soft and don't stick together. The mixture of vegetables in this recipe is quite flexible, and you can use raw or frozen veg like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, and green beans. The rice and vegetables are cooked separately with a heady blend of spices and then layered in a dish and topped with crunchy nuts and sweet raisins. When spooned onto a plate, all the components get mixed together and provide a beautifully satisfying blend of flavors and textures.
Q: I'm a single mom with a toddler. My usual cooking strategy is to make a few big casserole-type meals and eat leftovers throughout the week, but recently my son decided he doesn't like interesting food, so I'm either stuck with a boring meal or too many leftovers to finish.
Q: My dad was recently diagnosed as pre-diabetic, and he needs to make some big changes in his eating habits. He is an amazing cook who makes dinner on a nightly basis, but those dinners are filled with carbs, which he needs to cut down on.
Summer is all about hot weather, cook-outs and no-fuss parties, and sometimes this easy attitude extends to the raw chicken your host has left marinating on the counter for several hours before getting it on the grill. As a cook with some food safety knowledge, you know this is dangerous, but as a guest, you're hesitant to speak up. What do you do?