Learning to recreate (and even improve) a restaurant dish is such a great feeling
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Ah, the lasagna problem. My lasagna is better than the restaurants, but then I would have to put in the time to make a lasagna.
This is how you set the stage for destroying his ability to trust ever again.
She wouldn't have done the same with pasta if the sandwiches were bad, so I guess it's not a complete lie
It is a special thing to be skilled in the kitchen.
Whenever I get (genuine) compliments and appreciation for something I've turned out, my gut reaction is to go "hey, no problem, it's whatever, nothing special -- literally anyone can make it like this with really basic instructions and stuff -- it's easy!"
I always have to remind myself that, while I was raised with humility as a virtue, that's not necessarily the whole story - that I took an interest in food very early, am going on two decades cooking most of my own meals, am always experimenting in the kitchen, hunting (literally, sometimes) for new ingredients, acquiring new equipment and techniques, just constantly deepening in this area. It connects me to my surroundings, my forebears, my own body, the land, and (while it confuses militant vegans everywhere when I express this) the animals who walk/swim/fly on that land, who nourish us in return for our stewardship. People are attracted to this even if they might not know what exactly it is. it's ineffable, a thru-line all the way back to the heart of human-kind.
I have to remind myself that it's not particularly normal to spend hours holding produce and reading labels whenever I find a cool new store. Or, for that matter, to spend five years of one's life as a manager at an indie natural foods store with "immersion in the local food scene" as the primary goal. I didn't give a flying fuck about our EBITDA on a given day, or how much cash was in your drawer that night, but I sure did pretend well enough.
Truth is, I just wanted to move myself up the literal food chain -- quite literally lmao -- to get closer to the source. I enjoyed knowing what was going on before your average Joe, knowing where the trends were going, where the struggles and opportunities lay, who the up and coming producers were. Going out to farms, and to meet vendors and get nerdy and technical with my people about something we were all passionate about. (I did also just need a job, tbf.) And, guess what, EBITDA was fucking great; exceeded expectations because people are moved by passion and will buy things.
If you've read this far, cheers. I didn't, and don't, do all that because of some ambition. I'm not a chef or a restauranteur or an influencer. I do not own a crunchy grocery store - I don't even work at one anymore! I'm a simple nobody who knows the location of every single fruit and nut tree within a mile radius of where I live, and that's how I prefer it, and it's enough! And I love it when my wife asks for my cooking. Because it reminds me, yeah, I have put in the work, and it matters to people, and it's good!
I used to think the foodie thing might be a phase - but it's clearly not. I'm obsessed. I mean, we're literally fucking made of food god dammit!
It would have been hilarious if you had put "anyway here's the recipe for a basic burger patty," at the end of your text to mimic those websites nowadays that have to come with a 5000 word essay about the author's upbringing and opinions on the future of culinary arts.
Anyway, I'm a freelance translator/interpreter and my primary client is this Japanese company that needs to have news releases by Western companies translated as well as US, Canadian, and EU food laws on a daily basis. So while I do understand a bit more than the average consumer, I'm nowhere near as passionate or "close-to-the-source" as you.
All the corporations are now talking about alternatives. Alternative protein, alternative cocoa, alternative wheat (more like some chemical to bind weaker flour with stronger ones, not a complete replacement of the plant), etc, because of supply chain constraints (climate change and wars). Do/Did you see shifting trends caused by such issues at the local level?
For example, I live in Okinawa and some of our prefectual specialties like seaweed are grown in the ocean. With rising ocean temperatures, if the heat itself doesn't mess with the growth of the seaweed, the increased number of typhoons will. I feel like soon, locals will have to deal with slim pickings or find innovative ways of growing their products under new conditions.
I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Food is my love language, but I feel like my family takes it for granted lately. They just expect these gourmet meals each night and it's not special to them.
We were in a fancy restaurant and my partner leaned over to me and said mine is better. I also like cooking which probably helps.
You get to a point in home cooking where basically everything you make is better than a restaurant if you have the right equipment to prepare it because you don't have to worry about cost, time, or scale. Took me a few years and a lot of iteration for some dishes, but I think most home cooks should be able to cook a burger better than most restaurants and it should certainly be better than sysco patties.
One of the problems is that restaurants don't feel quite the same need to be at least somewhat healthy. I often wonder "Do I really want to add another 150 grams of butter?" when restaurants chefs will gladly add a full pound.
I used to think restaurant food was better than my own, but as I've got older I think my body has finally figured out that what they're serving there is not legitimately high quality.
Yeah, the downside is that I can't really enjoy chips in a lot of places now. Maybe I should bring my own herb salt with me, though I would normally add it before cooking.
One of my exes told me all the time, that the meals are missing some salt (literally telling me "all the time you add too few salt, even while I almost oversaturated the meal, just for her), the steak is not "done" enough, fished out all kinds of vegetables... Then she took the salt, goes to the kitchen and cooked the meat again or something else... I find it kind of rude being like that, tbh.
I once lived with two guys (a partner of mine, and his cousin), neither of whom ever did any cleaning whatsoever, so it all fell on me (the only woman, no surprise there.)
One day I took out the mop and started mopping the kitchen. The cousin started criticizing the way I was mopping, so I handed him the mop and told him, "If you're so good at it, maybe you should be doing it instead." He never criticized my cleaning again.
Some people have a (genetic?) predisposition to really like salt on things. I had a friend where most of their family salted things you wouldn’t expect and had lots of salty foods. Salt on melon slices for instance, snack foods like pickles and such. Dad died of a heart attack. No idea if it’s related.
Salt on melon is legit, if you apply only a light amount and let the salt spread through the watery flesh before eating it then it actually makes it taste much sweeter without being salty tasting.
Salt & chili powder is the best. A brand called Tajín is pretty good and is sold in pretty much every Hispanic grocery store
My family is like that. The heart disease is actually unrelated
I'm ethnically East-Asian but grew up in the UK/Canada. Born in the lower class and I'm middle-ish myself now.
I watched a lot of Gordon Ramsey and I finally decided to shell out for a fancy meal with my brother at the Savoy. I swear, everything tasted way too salted ... like every course except for the dessert. I was like, "damn, rich people love salt I guess?" or maybe it's just what I grew up with that I underseason things but man it was weird.
I do quite a lot of cooking and am pretty good at it, but yeah, classic restaurants often just slap in a lot of salt (+cream and butter) and that's supposed to be delicious. If you use any other spices, vinegars, soy sauces or whatever, the food at a restaurant like that will be salty bland.
Idk guys my ex wife basically acted like she was the only person who was capable of preparing meals other than breakfast, and I was young and just kinda accepted it. She always acted incredibly skeptical and negative toward me if I suggested making dinner.
After we divorced I had to learn to cook and got pretty good at it. My current wife appreciates my cooking and I cook just as much if not more than she does. None of my kids have died due to anything I cooled them, although you'd think they came pretty close by the way they act sometimes, especially when I was vegan.
After we divorced I had to learn to cook
So you're saying your ex was right, but constant critique stopped you from getting better
I do most of the cooking. That’s because I dislike boxed or processed foods and my other half seems unwilling to learn basics about seasoning and temperature.
Sometimes it just works out that one person is better at it or enjoys it, but there should be load sharing. The cook shouldn’t have to do the dishes for instance.
I cook and do the dishes, but I don't have to scoop the cat litter, so that's a pretty fair trade to me.
If genuine kindness and support is a “mind trick” then trick me, baby.
65 dollars on 2 burger fries combos??
I could feed myself for a month on that kinda money.
Some places are honestly getting crazy. Could probably run up a total like that at Five Guys. They're death spiraling and prices are out of hand.
Fun way to repackage “the ever increasing cost of food means we can’t eat out anymore”
Stop using SkipTheDishes and DoorDash.
A 17$ in-store order costs over 30$ delivered through Skip.
And now they have had 2 times burgers and one time plenty of pasta in 4 days. That's too much.