![]() Don't make it a big deal - just go slowly, give it your full attention and do it well. Or ask a friend who's a good cook to recommend a recipe that will teach you a new technique, like deglazing a pan or searing a chop. Find one that's stood the test of time, rather than something that's pulled randomly off the Internet. Pick a recipe that sounds good - something simple, if you're a beginner. ![]() Instead of watching Top Chef or spending time on Facebook, crack open Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Cooking, Judy Rodgers' The Zuni Café Cookbook or even something like Mario Batali's Molto Gusto: Easy Italian Cooking. If you know how to cook, teach your kids - they’ll thank you for the rest of their lives.Īnd if you don't, here's an idea. ![]() Not only is it a valuable life skill, but it incidentally teaches them math and science, while exposing them to other cultures through their foods. What a turn-on for kids, who find chefs and cooking shows at least as glamorous as adults do. If as a society we’re going to continue glamorizing chefs and restaurants, why don’t we go back to teaching kids to cook in school? Not in 1950s or ’60s home-ec fashion, when only girls were forced to endure learning cooking with all the life sucked out of it, but by getting passionate young cooks and chefs into the schools to teach what they love. If we did, we’d not only eat better, feel better and probably live longer, but we’d be connected to what sustains us - food - in a very basic and incredibly satisfying way. Despite America’s fascination with chefs and cookbooks and our infatuation with the DIY way of life as expressed on Pinterest, most people simply don’t know how to cook and can’t be bothered to learn. It’s a beautiful, simple thing, extremely reassuring.Īs a restaurant critic, I dine out far more often than most people, but for me, there’s nothing more satisfying than cooking for friends, spending the whole day shopping and prepping, poring over cookbooks the night before - and even the mad rush before they arrive.īut I treasure just as much the off-the-cuff dinners for family, even the ones where at first glance the pantry seems bare - then I play my favorite game: making something out of “nothing.” Like a salad fashioned from leftover rapini, a drizzle of good balsamic and a quick dice of roasted red peppers from a jar, followed by spaghetti with garlic, olive oil and chopped parsley.īut you do need to know what you’re doing, and that’s again where we bump against a conundrum. You can smell and see when it’s time for the next ingredient to go in. In goes the onion, and you hear the quiet sizzle. You know when it’s just hot enough you can see the designs in the oil. You make the cuts, pull off the paper skin. Dicing an onion can be like a meditation.
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