I made yummy almond cookies tonight. And then ate too many- now I have a tummyache.
I never was much of a cook. One of my coworkers, Stephen Ramsay, posted a bit ago about the art of cooking: he recommended some nice beginning level books. I realized that a lot of what I am missing in cooking is this beginning stuff- how to make the basic sauces, what cooking terms mean, what temperatures things normally cook at. I have been blindly following recipes for years, wihout really learning anything from them.
I realized that a lot of my education has been the same way. I’ve followed a lot of instructions through the years without making the connections they were supposed to add up to. Part of this is because I never could stay at one school for long- 3 elementary, 2 middle, 3 high schools and 3 colleges for me- many in different states. I read The Old Man and the Sea in three different English classes, and missed a lot of books too. I think part of the problem was that teachers didn’t make the conections, though. It wasn’t entirely their fault- even before no child left behind, there was an emphasis on state test scores. Teachers had to teach what we would be tested on.
College was better, but I still felt like I was stumbling around blind much of the time. I somehow made it to the end and even learned stuff.
I really like getting older. I am starting to feel like I can make sense of the world, at least a little.
Hi Karin,
The Joy of Cooking was my first “grown up” cookbook, given to me by my mom when I moved into my first apartment, and it’s got some good basic (and not so basic) stuff in it. And it’s amazing the way random bits of information fall together when you’ve got a context. I’d long known how to make a soufle, of all things, but had no idea that it started with what’s called a roux, which is the beginning of all sorts of things (white sauce, gumbo, etc.).
On a related note, you might be interested in an article I recently read for class: Gee, James. 2005. Learning by design: good video games as learning machines. E-learning 2(1): 5-16. It’s got some very interesting bits about learning and pedagogy.
I’d second The Joy of Cooking, it’s a staple with everything from simple to complicated dishes.
Actually one of the authors of the three recommended books has a website with some techniques explained complete with video.
http://www.jacquespepin.net/members/techniques/index.html
Thanks for the link, Gene!