Is using a Recipe Good or Bad?

07-05-24 00 / episode: 385

Monica was devastated. The people from her party left five minutes earlier. But her party was a flop. They said her cooking tasted like it was made from a recipe. She wanted to go to bed and cry all night. The worst thing was: She HAD cooked from recipes.

That was the moment she decided to become a good cook. On her way to becoming a good cook, she had four turning points and made a surprising decision at the end.

Hi and welcome to the Les Perras podcast, episode number 385. Today’s episode is centred on recipes.

Bad Food

Monica’s food wasn’t bad per se. It just wasn’t GOOD. It was uninspired. It was insipid. But that was just the beginning. She thought, if cooking from recipes was a bad thing, then she would learn to cook without a recipe. She started right the next day. She opened the fridge and got out some things to cook. The first thing was chicken. Then some vegetables. After that she looked around her kitchen for some seasonings.

Thirty minutes later, she sat down to eat it. THIS was bad food. Now Monica had her second realisation: she needed a PLAN.

Amazing Food

The second time she started cooking, she had a plan. She thought about the flavours that she liked. She got all her seasonings out. She cooked with a vigour. She was inspired. She added a little this and a little that. These seasonings were her favourites. This time she would make a masterpiece.

When she finally sat down to eat it, she couldn’t believe it. This time it was amazingly bad. It was so bad, in fact, that she could not eat it. She had to waste the food. She felt just as bad as the day of her party. In fact, for a while, Monica thought about quitting. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She thought, “”I’m being a drama queen. I’ve only cooked twice without a recipe.”
She took a short walk and decided the best thing was to take cooking lessons.

Cooking Lessons

Monica felt so nervous going to the cooking class. She thought cooking class was for other people but not for her. But she pushed herself into the class and started learning. She was in for a surprise. They taught some really good things in that class. She didn’t learn just how to cut vegetables. She learned how to use eggs. She learned how to combine flavours. She learned different ways to mix, layer and present food. She was very impressed.

But the thing that surprised her the most, shocked her, in fact, was this: She could see patterns. The food that she was cooking was very similar to the recipes that she remembered using. She started to rethink the cooking school idea, and cooking in general.

Hello Recipes!

Monica thought quite a bit about the cooking school. She thought “I’m learning all these cooking principles and I am cooking things that are just like my recipes. Why not just use the recipes?” That was when she decided a few things. The first thing she decided was that she did not need cooking school. And the second thing she decided was that she did not need to listen to other people’s opinions about what makes a good cook. She decided to keep her life simple and just use recipes.