The short answer:
Eh.
The long answer:
I enjoy watching Iron Chef from time to time, but I don’t really have a good reason for it. As far as I can tell, there are only three reasons to enjoy watching it: you like to cook good food, you like to eat good food, or you enjoy the ridiculous dubbing. But my best dish is scrambled eggs, I’ll eat anything as long as it’s served on some sort of plate, bowl, or trough, and I also watch Iron Chef America, so there goes that theory.
Perhaps it is just that I like the idea of being able to cook, even if I’m not very good at it myself. It is, after all, essentially magic. Somehow a chef takes raw foods, which are basically inedible, and turns them into something delectable. I would be no more amazed if they could do the same with rocks.
If I were to write a cookbook detailing my own personal techniques, it would be called How to Cook Stuff. There would be one recipe, for “stuff,” and it would go something like this:
- Put stuff in a big pan.
- Put pan on stove, stirring occasionally, until stuff appears cooked or twenty minutes have elapsed, whichever comes first. (Tip: Remember to turn on stove!)
- For seasoning, sprinkle in any and all spices that happen to be within arm’s reach until stuff no longer tastes like cardboard.
- “Enjoy!”
(Alternatively, replace steps 1-3 by “Microwave to taste.”) It usually ends up tasting okay, but I’m sort of partial to the taste of salty cardboard.
My mother, of course, is convinced that even this limited cooking knowledge escapes me. I’m pretty sure she thinks that if it were not for the good people at Kellogg’s and Campbell’s, I would go weeks without eating. As such, whenever I go back home, she always gives me a large amount of food to take back with me. Naturally, I think her cooking is, well, just like Mom used to make. But I can only eat microwaved leftovers so many days in a row before either I get sick of it or it goes bad, whichever comes second, and then it’s back to uninspired stuff.
Perhaps the problem is that I am neither an epicure, nor a foodie, nor a gourmet. Maybe if I were pickier about my food, I’d have more of a motivation to make something good. To wit, my older sister is the pickiest in the family, and she’s also the most adventurous chef. She probably wouldn’t call herself a chef, but anyone who, when faced with a craving for pasta, decides to make fresh pasta from scratch is enough of a chef to be called one in my book. (I’ll put it in the preface.)
I don’t think that right now I’m in the demographic of people who are expected to be great cooks, so there’s no real pressure for me to learn the difference between all those blender settings yet. But maybe one day when I’m bored, I’ll take it upon myself to learn to cook something other than stuff. I’ll host a lavish dinner party, and you’ll all be invited. Until then, you can always come over for breakfast. I do make a mean scrambled egg.
Cheers,
-qm
