Health & Fitness
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Spatula?
Pick up your spatula and learn to cook. Do it for yourself. Do it for your loved ones. Do it so you can wow your neighbors at pot lucks, porch parties, and other community events.
Chef Anne Money Buck has a wonderful post called "" on this week's Seminole Heights Patch where she encourages the non-cooks out there to pick up a spatula and go for it and learn something fun. Well, I'm the kind of person that always wanted to learn to cook but was never very good at it. (And no, Anne, I do not secretly crave to run a restaurant, though I'd love to run a B&B some day.) Today, I cook nearly all the meals at home and I host a monthly neighborhood potluck where I prepare a main course. How did I change from a man frightened by flambe to a fearless hobby cook that will tackle any dish just to see if it can be done? Ramona Avila.
Ramona, or as she insisted I call her "mom", was a very close friend's mother who visited me in Las Vegas with two of her sisters. They had agreed to teach me how to make my favorite dish, Chile Relleno with beans and rice, in exchange for playing hotel on their Vegas get-away. That's when I learned to appreciate the process of cooking and not just the result. Go ahead and dirty every pan and throw a few mistakes in the garbage. The point in the beginning is to explore and learn. Later, once you can make meals that people really enjoy (and not just to be polite), you will find that it's a great way to make people you care about happy. The Chile Rellenos were wonderful, and I've moved on to New Zealand spring lamb, Indian Dahls, and Canary Island pork roasts.
And now for a little secret: The recipes you find in consumer-oriented cook books are often more complex than the ones used in restaurants. Simple preparations of high quality foods are the key to good cooking.