Marilyn Haggerty's amazing Olive Garden review and the subsequent viral shitstorm

it's exactly the kind of behaviour that makes novice cooks IA. it's kinda cool now that I can cook and I respect the 'whatever whatever' relaxed approach that each version of the dish is a little bit different, but I remember it being crazymaking as a kid

humus is a ratio recipe, ime:

3 pts chick peas
1 pt tahine
bunch of garlic
some water
maybe some oil or cumin or whatever?

let's all pitch in and get lex a copy of the Alinea cookbook for some no fuss basics

we should say "have become" instead of "have been", everyone cooks off of recipes when they're starting out

xpost to contenderizer

I'm still pretty much a recipe cook.

to veer slightly back onto topic i just read that marilyn hagerty follow-up article and i had NO idea ground rounds still existed!!

alinea requires too much specialized equipment, get him the french laundry one instead

true, I guess we've gotta go with a real beginner's level one

the best advice is the cooking partner stuff (see also the entirely otm "cooking by yourself sucks" acknowledgements of even cooking evangelists upthread). i've tried cookbooks (back when i tried, before i gave up trying at all in the spirit of cutting my losses), being unable to deal with a recipe that's not turning out like it should or other roadblocks is why we're here in the first place. but i don't have a cooking partner oh well

YET

:)

it is pretty tough to scale recipes down to for one person

P.S. This, too, shall pass. I soon will take my hammer named Margo and go down to the river. There I will meditate on the 15 years that have passed since the flood of 1997.

this woman

when i lived alone i made a lot of little pizzas. i would buy nan bread and just put whatever i wanted on top (cheese, broccoli, olives, sauce, pesto, whatever) and throw them in the oven. ten minutes and done. yummy. even a lex could do that. and then no leftovers. you know, the small round ones.

premade pizza bases too. can of artichoke hearts, some pesto, some cheese, jar of olives...if you don't want to chop anything homemade pizza is the way to go. sorta cooking without cooking.

but even better if you are feeling frisky and chop a tomato, a zucch, some shrooms...love a pizza piled high with veg. And I'm not even a veggo!

mmm, onion nan too. i should buy some. i really like nan for pizza. but i haven't done that in years. for awhile maria was rolling dough on saturday mornings at our friend's brick-oven pizza place and our house was lousy with pizza dough. kinda got doughed out.

dough fatigue, lol

I've never tried nan for pizza. We always used to use pita bread. Much thinner crust obv. But tasty.

pita + ketchup + "italian seasoning" powder + cheese singles + toaster oven = 3rd grade heaven

YES

Oh yeah, naan or pita pizza is cool and very easy.

I sympathise with lex a fair amount - unless you've got a big freezer or a family to make economies of scale then cooking from scratch really doesn't cost any less, and it's a major major hassle. I don't enjoy it when I do it. The best thing I've done with cooking is to learn how to make a nice tomato and veg soup in a massive saucepan, eat that for a couple of days, and then on the third day get some mince to cook, add in soup leftovers and then eat with any good carbs - bread or potatoes or pasta, whatever. But the first day of that process takes aaaaaaages, I get so bored.

the slightly burny parts of tomato paste at the edges of the crusty pita = yum

Crumpets are great for pizza.

xpost

no it definitely does cost less (unless you're eating fast food) but you have to be willing to eat your dinner for lunch the next day, every day

I found one of the most important things I learned in cooking is this: when measurements matter, and when they dont.

When they do: baking. Anything that involves cakes, bread, other scientific miracles, you gotta measure it accurately.

When they dont? Things like the size of a single onion. Wether its 1 or 3 garlic cloves. "about a cup" of stock in a stew. The amount/weight of cubed steak for a casserole (recipe says 700g and I only have 500? Ok, i'll add an extra potato then). You learn when its ok to wing it. It'll still be edible!

This possibly only falls over when you're dealing with things like chillies, and similar very strong flavours. Oh and salt I suppose.

late great: I guess I don't really eat lunch much, so I'm not spending money on that anyway. Hence my 'if you don't have a big freezer' caveat. 'Big' to me is 'bigger than a single bag of frozen peas'.

I cook a lot after work, becuase the process of cooking is usually pretty relaxing for me. I enjoy prepping veggies, chilling out to some music or a podcast and just chopping away, and I enjoy the cooking part too.

The only time I get kind of stressed is when I'm baking. That's when I have to have a drink before or during, and deliberately choose happy/favorite music to put me in a good frame of mind. Especially with pastry. For some reason we don't get along very well, but I am DETERMINED to make it my bitch.

trayce otm with measurements.

damn that's a small freezer

god frozen leftovers are depressing to me tho, who would want to look at last months spaghetti sauce

which is why I use OKCupid.

lex: "lol I'm so helpless!!!"
everyone else: oh don't worry I'm a good cook, let me tell you some stuff
lex: "lol I'm so helpless!!!" I hate cooking and gave up long ago
everyone else: oh don't worry I'm a good cook, let me tell you some stuff okay whatever
lex: no seriously guys, here is how helpless I am!!!!!! I ACTUALLY FORGET THAT HEAT CAN BE APPLIED TO FOOD WHAT IS HEAT WHAT IS FOOD

- all because someone mentioned food in a thread lex happened to read.

so who did you used to be? are you old too? i don't know the name. or the late great either. so confusing.

and everyone is all like oh plaxico is this guy now and i'm thinking wait plaxico? i know i know that one. but not really. i should just give up. i know enough people probably.

Scott - the late great is Vah1d! I had to ask a couple days ago but I was happy to find out he's back. :)

- all because someone mentioned food in a thread lex happened to read.

― free societies must let drunken gay Texans have sex (Je55e), Thursday, March 15, 2012 5:35 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this matters to you

i know who carne asada is! i think...

who is scott seward

so who did you used to be? are you old too? i don't know the name. or the late great either. so confusing.

Assume you were addressing me, since you probably know who Alfred is - I have been around since 2005. I was Jesse until last year when I killed off my old Yahoo email account. I was some form of "Jesse" in the sandboxes, too.

whooooooooooooooooooo are you

I'm just Jesse in the 'box.

i also recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Peel-Peach-Other-Things/dp/0471221236

One of the best cookbooks I have had is an Australian cookbook/encyclopedia, by Stephanie Alexander called "A Cooks Companion".

It's a big fat book, organized alphabetically, with an entry for common vegetables and meats, fruits and seafood. For each entry there's a section on varieties, storage, preparation, and then a selection of recipes for that ingredient. I still use it to this day, if I come across a veggie at the market that I'm not familiar with, or I try a new cut of meat at a restaurant, I can refer to it and figure out how to go about cooking it or preparing it, it's so useful. Her recipes can be a bit bossy/complicated, but I've had it for like, 15 years and I love it to death. I carted it with me in my carryon luggage when I moved.

I don't know if there's something equivalent to that here, but that seems like it would be less intimidating, and a little more instructional than a regular cookbook. I dunno.

i see that in every kitchen

Yeah it's kind of a mong cliche, but it's pretty great. Taught me a lot.

yeah that's a pretty universal book, although I do not own it.

How to Cook Everything is a popular cookbook that has a bit of that to it. It's not quite as encyclopedic but it's fairly expansive and very good as a beginner's cookbook. One thing I like about it is that he'll give you a simple recipe and then like five variations (basic broiled fish and then broiled fish with various kinds of sauces, e.g.)

Ya I find I consult bittman a lot for basic ideas and simple recipe bases

alinea requires too much specialized equipment, get him the french laundry one instead

my chef instructor was telling the class how thomas keller pushes his soups/sauces through a tamis seventeen times to get the ideal smoothness. that's fairly specialized and very labor-intensive.