COOKING OUTSIDE THE LINES

I enjoy cooking, most of the time. The problem is I don't really feel like I know what I'm doing. I can follow a recipe like a champ. I even do okay with some of the more complex recipes. I don't balk at concepts like roux. I have a double-boiler and I know how to use it. So I can cook, sort of.

I say "sort of" because I believe there's more to cooking than recipes. Restricting yourself to food that comes from a recipe is like restricting yourself to music that comes from a sheet. You can get some great music from a sheet, but you will miss out on whole genres like, say, jazz. There's no jazz in my cooking. To be more precise (and less metaphorical) there is no improvisation in my cooking.

I cannot adapt a recipe to my own needs, cannot make substitutions for missing ingredients, and I most certainly cannot improvise a whole meal from scratch. Take away my recipes and you take away my ability to cook.

I'm not much of a risk taker. My mom thinks it's a symptom of first-child syndrome - this unwillingness to deviate from instructions. My brother (a second child) can go through his fridge, toss whatever he finds in a pan, and produce some pretty impressive meals. I envy him that ability. My grandmother (a fourth child) makes some wonderful foods, but is completely unable to explain what she's doing. It is nearly impossible to get her to commit to quantities and times so I can create a recipe for myself to use later. Her answer to "How much parsley?" is "As much as I need." She uses recipes occasionally, but most of the time she makes food without ever opening a cookbook.

The only thing I make without a recipe is a sandwich. What keeps me from trying anything more complex is the feeling that I do not understand the rules behind cooking. I don't know why things are done the way they are. I do not know the relationship between certain spices and the final taste. I do not know when it is okay to withhold salt and when it is not okay. In short, I do not understand the chemistry behind cooking and, until I do, I'm not willing to experiment. This is where the first-child syndrome really gets me into trouble, because experimenting is one of the best ways to make up for this deficiency. It's a catch-22. I'm not willing to try new things until I understand why and I won't understand why until I try new things.

Enter Alton Brown

My girlfriend gave me Alton Brown's book "I'm Just Here For the Food" for my birthday, a most excellent gift. Now finally I have in my hands a resource that explains not just what to do but WHY we do it (he also has a TV show, but I don't happen to get that channel). He explains the theory, the chemistry, behind the actions. Give me a little while to read it, and soon I hope to take my cooking from the act of assembling food into the much more exciting realm of creating it.

I can't wait.