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Learning to Cook


Tammy

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I love to eat but I cook by smoke detector.  Now it is even worse because I'm having health issues that require that I remove a bunch of foods from the pantry.  I'll looking for a great deal of help.

 

No Alcohol, No Acidic Foods, Diabetic so no or little sugar or starch.  How do I do this?  I'm here to find out.

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Welcome to eGullet, Tammy.  Has your doctor given a list of items that you can eat, or nutritional guidelines? When my mother's kidneys began to fail she was given lists of good foods, foods to minimize and foods to avoid altogether. If you have a list of approved foods you might be able to get some specific and constructive help. As an example, you could post a list of approved ingredients in this topic: Create my meal - the game and see what folks suggest. You may also wish to peruse the offerings in The eGullet Culinary Institute for some good how-to classes.  The courses are old, but still valuable.

 

I like your line "I cook by smoke detector".  Years ago, a friend gave me some napkins that said, "Dinner will be ready when the smoke alarm goes off". :D

 

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Tammy, is it Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes? What, exactly, are the acidic foods you're supposed to eliminate? (I assume you don't mean acid-producing foods, which is a whole 'nother animal, and a bogus one at that.) I imagine citrus and vinegar, but what else?

 

After you reply, I'll post about "resistant starch."

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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I think there are two things to learn straight out of the gate...

 

1)  To paraphrase Emeril - those knobs on the stove?  They're there for a reason.  Never cook on high - or even medium high - unless you have a specific reason for doing so. 

 

2) Taste your food as you go along - and especially towards the end.  I can think of multiple occurrences from my experience where someone has placed a dish on the dinner table and said "I hope it tastes good..."  Hope is not a good cooking strategy or technique.

 

Ok, and a bonus one...

 

Think small.  As a learning exercise, boil a small portion of spaghetti.  Drain, and over very low  (or maybe even no) heat, add a little pat of butter and mix,  Taste.  Add a little salt and mix. Taste. Add a little pepper and mix  Taste. 

 

If at any step it's to much, throw it out and start over.  Don't make your failures traumatic.  Use them to remember what not to do.  Because cooking well is about adjusting.

 

Edit: Link didn't work.  youtube: "Jacques Pepin Recipes"

 

"

 

Edited by IndyRob (log)
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1 minute ago, cakewalk said:

Wise advice. (And not just for cooking.)

 

Thanks.  That general Idea came from a drawing class I took in college.  We were drawing a live model and she was told to change positions every two minutes - so we had throw out what we had done and start over.  Again and again.  You simply didn't have time to fix your mistakes.  Just not do them again.

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1 minute ago, IndyRob said:

 

Thanks.  That general Idea came from a drawing class I took in college.  We were drawing a live model and she was told to change positions every two minutes - so we had throw out what we had done and start over.  Again and again.  You simply didn't have time to fix your mistakes.  Just not do them again.

Or do them again and again and again and again until, somehow, you don't. :)

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