Cooking has always been easy for me, I come to it naturally and I was exposed to it from a very early age. We didn't eat out often and Mother cooked every day, and sometimes Father made his specialties: blue steak with a knob of butter slathered on top; conch fritters and battered shrimp; fiddleheads and wild mushrooms foraged from the garden. Also, being more than a little food obsessed helped too.
One of my earliest food experiments was a bubbling, frothing, seriously alive bowl of chocolate yeast goo. I was about six or so. I added chocolate Quik, yeast, and water to a bowl then left it on the radiator behind a chair in the living room. After a few days, its smell gave it away, and Mother made me dump it, though not before Father praised me for my mad skills. He and I were on the same wavelength.
But you see, that was Lesson Number One and Two right there. One) don’t be afraid to mix this with that and see what happens; and Two) be creative, cook without a recipe.
Now, as a writer of recipes I’m glad there are folks who love to follow recipes, but I really think we’d all be a little happier, less stressed, and a lot better fed if we could all cook without a recipe; if we could open the fridge and follow a few easy to remember rules of thumb and make something amazing from whatever there was in there. And I get it! I know there are many, many folks out there who love food, love to eat, want to eat well, and even love to cook, but just don't have an innate ability...no shame zone! I can't do math to save my life.
But I'm here to tell you, it is possible to cook without a book! To prove it to you, a very talented artist – Sophia Saunders – and I have just created a handy-dandy graphic laying out in six easy steps how you too can cook anything!
You see, it’s all about building the flavour and that’s just like piling up building blocks – child’s play!
I call my method the 6 Fs, though it’s really the first four that matter the most; five and six are somewhat optional. Follow this and you can't go wrong! I mean, well, the timing is up to you and if you put the burner on too high then get sucked into a Twitter war or something, I can't help you....
Very soon, you too can own this handy-dandy poster to hang in your kitchen; just visit Society6; it will be for sale from that site within the next few days!