It’s true, Amy is an amazing cook. That is probably why we only eat out a few times a month. Shocking when compared to the average American who, according to various studies, eat 4 – 5 meals out a week. When I was single, I was a passable cook, relying on books such as “Where’s Mom Now That I Need Her” and “Cooking with 5 Ingredients or Less” to keep me from starving. It wasn’t that I did not like to cook, but it took a lot of time to cook and I would be frustrated by all of the lingo. Blanche, sauté, simmer, dice, julienne, broil, braise, brown, crumble, whip, etc. I’d read over a recipe and think “that sounds good.” The directions seemed easy until I came to the point of actually preparing the dish. Then suddenly I’d get hung up on terminology. I’d start to question what it meant or when a process was truly done. Did I sauté the onions long enough? Hard to tell when there is one little paragraph telling you how to make an entire dish. Thanks goodness for Alton Brown.

So, I was content to not worry about cooking and let Amy take care of it. As I said Amy is a great cook and her mother is as well. In fact, when Amy was a teenager, her mother made her and her sister cook some of the family meals, passing those cooking skills on to them. This is certainly something I wished my parents had passed on to me, along with basic financial skills, basic negotiating skills, and basic workplace skills. Anyway, life putters on but I never get over my frustration with cooking. Until one day when my friend Donald recommended I watch Good Eats on the Food Network.

Alton Brown, the creator and host of Good Eats, set out to make a different kind of cooking show. There are recipes and cooking demonstrations, but he also goes a step further and explains the science behind what happens. He tells you why you need eggs in this recipe or how come smaller pieces of garlic have a stronger flavor. He explains what a smoke point is and why it is important. He points out different cooking methods and when to use them and also what kitchen gear is useful and what it useless.

When I saw this, I discovered the long dormant joy of cooking rekindled. Here was the information I had always lacked before. By understanding the underlying process of what was happening in the oven, I was much better equipped mentally to understand what each step in the recipe was trying to tell me. As I cooked I made rational decisions like what type of oil would be appropriate for this dish or when I made a mistake because combining those ingredients would not achieve my desired results.

Is Alton Brown some kind of genius? Well yes, but that is not the point of this post. The point was to get me to truly enjoy cooking; I needed to understand what happened in the background. The problem being that I did not know I needed to know that. Now when I’m struggling with something, I know to do some research on what is going on while I’m working. Armed with this knowledge, my confidence increases as does the end result.

So if you are struggling with something, take a moment to learn more about it. It may not even be directly applicable to your current situation but it can certainly fill in gaps that you did not know you had.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving a few years back. Alton Brown recommends brining a turkey before you roast it and one of his shows deals with the Thanksgiving bird. I had wanted to try that for years so when I finally had the opportunity, I did it. I cooked the Thanksgiving turkey and it came out amazing. Following that year, my mother-in-law asked if I would cook the turkey every year. That is high praise indeed.