On recipes.

I was prompted today to post a recipe.  Not too surprising of a prompt, of course; those of you that know me (and I'm going to assume that's all three of you that are here) know I cook a great deal.  But as I sat down to think about what my greatest dish and the story behind it was, I hit a rather familiar roadblock.  Barring baking, I don't generally follow recipes, much less write my own.

That's not to say that recipes don't have their purpose.  If I'm learning a new dish, I'll make it once to spec to understand what the author wanted it to taste like, then adapt it accordingly to my tastes.  But after a while, you start to realize that most recipes are just one or two techniques with variances on ingredients.  Once you learn how to make a proper pot roast, braising short ribs in coffee isn't much of a jump.  If you learned how to make a beschamel for your baked mac and cheese, then you know how to build a turkey gravy.

To understand these techniques, it's important to understand why you're doing what you're doing.  Are you searing that pork chop because that's how you seal in juices, or because the Maillard reaction generates complexity of flavor?  Is that water bath you're putting your cheesecake in to keep the top from cracking or for insulation?  When you learn these things, you learn to adapt.  You learn to thicken your chowders with leftover mashed potatoes when you don't have the flour to build a roux, because starch is starch.  You learn to use white vinegar in your guacamole when someone has a citrus allergy because acid is what keeps the avocados from oxidizing.

And I say this to you because it's important to know how to adapt.  When you know why the rules and instructions are in place, you understand what's important and what's not.  And you stop worrying when you miss your turn, because you can just take the next one and circle around.  You stop stressing out when you lose a washer because a bread clip will do just fine.  You waltz to Everybody Hurts because it's in 3/4.

Knowledge is power because knowledge keeps you from freaking the fuck out.  And not freaking the fuck out is the greatest power of all.