Personally, I’m somewhat in between: love cooking for family and friends especially those particular dishes that they enjoy and that I know I’m good at.
But most of the cooking I do is the one that ‘needs to be done’ for everyday meals and not very exiting
I hate cooking those dishes that I can never get right, no matter how hard I try, like Bombe Alaska or Soufflé.
But what I hate most is the cleaning up after a particular cook-up storm in the kitchen
Something that all those who refuse to cook don’t get - if you cook you have a good chance to avoid washing up.
You can avoid dishes that require close timing and much technique and still put a wide range of good tucker on the table. Almost anyone can learn to select good ingredients, follow a recipe, taste as you go and make a nice presentation.
A good trick to learn if you want to cook for a crowd is to put effort into planning ahead and to pre-prepare as much as possible. Having a row of little bowls with prepared ingredients ready to go is useful for every day cooks in cases where time is short not just TV chefs.
That way you can magically sit down with your guests and be sociable instead of appearing late to table red-faced and rushed. Planning ahead might include selecting dishes that don’t need last minute close attention (like souffle) until your confidence grows. Co-opting guests to fetch and carry will help.
I enjoy cooking and produce a wide range of cuisines, such as Vietnamese, Thai, Italian, Chinese, Indian, north African, European, Persian and Chilean. Nothing is out of reach now with the internet.
We have been fortunate to have being able to travel and also like cooking local dishes we enjoyed on route often not found in restaurants/food outlets. Not only are they delicious but bring back memories of our travels.
We don’t have meat and three vege all that often and I find cooking these dull and uninspiring. If we do have meat and three vege (or salad), to spice it up we make our own condiments such as salsa verde, mustard and yoghurt, dipping sauces (soy, dark rice vinegar and garlic) etc to make the meal more interesting.
Having moved to Tasmania, we find Anglo-Saxon type dishes more the norm and to create the variety we enjoy, we have to cook our own. Fortunately we have great fresh produce and the ability to make our own tasty worldly meals…and enjoy cooking.
We are on the other side in a regional area, where taste buds are conservative. Pubs/hotels dominated by traditional foods with the occasional non-Anglo restaurant/cafe…even so their dishes have been modified to suit local palates (low spice and inoffensive). Good Asian veges hard to come by and we now grow our own. Wouldn’t change where we live, but do miss the culinary variety of the mainland cities.
I think cooking is tried by many and mastered by few. Some talented people can just whip together whatever is at hand without much of an effort; it all arrives on the table at the same time; and it tastes fabulous. I am not one of those people, but the wife woman is. Lucky me!
I don’t like cooking, but am very happy doing the dishes and cleaning up. I am also an appreciative culinary audience. Rarely, I feel like eating a particular meal, I will then cook it. Most of the time, I don’t much care what I eat (within limits) and just as happy eating a can of baked beans as haute cuisine.
So for me, cooking is a chore that I tend to avoid.
Some talent is required but unless you make things difficult for yourself not a huge amount. It mainly reflects willingness to work on it, to look at what is required to get it done and plan so it will happen. As with so many skills the reason some people make their success look easy is because of the number of failures they learned from beforehand.
About here I should mention there are two areas of skill combined here in various situations. One is the technical ability to cook the dish(es) involved, the other is planning and organisation. To cook for 2 takes the first. To cook for 32 takes both.
I would venture to say that a love of cooking doesn’t always mean being a good cook? I’ve been a dinner guest of people who professed to have a great love of cooking but I struggled to finish the unpalatable plate.
OTOH many who find it difficult to cook well get discouraged and develop a dislike of cooking. My dear Mum wouldn’t hide her dislike of cooking, and in fact was really bad at it, for example: she would boil veggies until soft, throw away the water they’d be cooking in, then pan sauté them until a pulp was all that was left! It’s a testament to the great love my father had for her that although being an excellent cook himself, he would sit at the table without a murmur!
My philosophy is that the effort required should match the outcome. For example, a thrice cooked rosemary infused, grilled potato roast should be better tasting than a baked potato with a sprinkle of rosemary. Having many processes and therefore more prep time, should result in a better dish. Most times I am disappointed.
For this reason I don’t bother making my own croissants, but I’ll bake bread. I do like doing something new, but I am up against Mr Z’s preference for plain and recognisable food. Also constrained by the limited product range in local shops, although I can, and do, grow unusual fruit & veg for myself.
I am neither. I can cook, but living alone I do not often want to bother. Then theres menulog. Chicken and 4 veg is my go to, but i get a bit carried away at times. I love fesh veg, steamed. Even spuds
I enjoy cooking. I love to get inspiration from recipes or dishes eaten out and attempting to reproduce or alter, but I don’t tend to follow any recipes to the letter. As with many things in life if you don’t have a love for the final result it is unlikely you will have a passion for attempting to create it, but even if you do have that love it does not follow that you will necessarily have that creative passion. I’m not a fan of overly complicated processes and certainly not a fan of the trend towards deserts that taste of nothing but sugar, no matter how impressive they appear. I don’t consider myself a great cook, just one that enjoys the process, likes to create and usually comes out with a pleasant result.
I love cooking, especially for those who appreciate it. We have multiple allergies and intolerances in our lot, so when you modify things to suit - it’s really nice if they appreciate it x
I love cooking both sweet and savoury. I love winter for soups and casseroles either in the oven or slow cooker. I use favourite recipes, often with a tweak or two, but I’m not afraid to try something new. If I don’t like the end result I don’t make it again otherwise it gets added to the many favourites. I always wash up as I go.
I was raised in a family that had Cafes, take-aways, restaurants, delicatessens, caterers and hotel suppliers. From the age of 4 I washed dishes, my weekends as a teen were spent cooking for a small country town that in the 50’s and 60’s had very simple tastes. At home we ate Greek, Italian and French with garlic and parmigiana cheese. It was not unusual to cook 100 chickens, 15 legs of lamb and kilos of Cacciatore sausages and kilos of thinly sliced salami for local Italian weddings. I helped feed horse-race meetings, local exhibitions and special town events.
I was taught the importance of timing, smell and sound and planning. After years of getting up early to make the town breakfast, eating lunch at 2pm and finishing late at night 7 days a week I walked away and became of all things a maths teacher.
But I have never lost the love of cooking. Getting it right every time, getting everything on the table hot at the same time. I enjoy taking a recipe and modifying it to my own tastes. The ability of being able to blend taste and allow one thing to dominate, or just watch those around the table try to work out what I have done. I have also found out that my recipes do NOT work for other cooks.
I have found that wine, either red, white or bubbles do not mix with very sharp knives or Hollandaise Sauce.
I have also found out that my current spell checker struggles with a lot of cooking words. I do not love cooking, I live for it and at 76 years old my family weekend meals are still about good food well prepared, good wines and a good German dunkel beer. The spell checker didn’t even know “dunkel”!
We’ve been on the road doing some travelling. A mix of food including self contained where we could cook, visiting family for meals, eating out and take away. There is an overwhelming desire to return to our everyday home cooking. It may come as no surprise so much of what we do not cook ourselves tastes excessively salty.
How appealing the opportunity to cook a familiar home meal. No need to make it complex or tricky. The reward is having cooked it yourself.
