How to cook
Draft for TM speech #2
I started helping around the kitchen when I was a toddler, by the time I got to middle school I was doing all the food shopping for our family with a giant backpack. When I went to college I finally decided to learn how to cook. I was so successful at doing this that I and most of my friends were kicked out of school instead of learning we were cooking and throwing parties. First I wanted to go Pro, but then I figured that a computer programmer job pays better and since then I consider cooking a non-profit public service. I never had a formal education as a chef, but I was cooking almost every day for 20 years,
I sudied many eastern and western, and fusion cusines, I keep learning, experimenting and getting better.
And now in the next 4 minutes I'm going to tell you all I know about cooking. Cooking is about people, ingredients, timing and construction.
People: when people enter your house come to greet them. Ask them about their day. Ask them what they want.
Offer them what you have. It can be food , drink, conversation a game - anything they want and you happen to have.
Don't focus on cooking. Focus on people and your parties will rock and people will think you're a good cook.
Don't cook too much, don't be exausted from cooking, leave enouph energy to interact and to entertain.
Ingredients: According to Mike Pollan food rules are simple: eat food , not too much, mostly plants.
Food is something your great grandma would recognize as food, not too much is hard and deserves a separate speach, mostly plants means fruits and vegetables. Have them in the house. Don't buy in bulk, have them on display and let people pick what they want. Wash them, clean them puth them on the nice plate. The less you do the better, but whatever you do, do it well. Let your guests make their own salad or at least consult them about what goes in.
Timing: know what happens to the ingredients as you submerge them to heat. Know what happens to them after 5 minutes on the table or 5 days in the fridge. Know when your guest are hungry. the best condiment for the food is hunger, so serve your meals just in time.
Soup is just a salad with boiling water, but you need to manage the timing: know your ingredients and you won't undercook or overcook them
Construction: If you mastered the first three you'll be a good cook, better then most people. Proper construction is what makes you great. But intuitively you know how to do it: it's just like playing with Lego blocks. you put this ingridient with that, apply this technique for that amount of time and see what happens. Most cookbooks are just like this pictures that come in the bucket of lego blocks: This is how you do a house. This is how you make a boat. But the real fun begins when you throw the pictures away and begin building for real. There's no such thing as Lego champion and Lego expert. you can do it forever and get better and have fun. Cooking is the same. Take the building blocs: People, Ingredients, Timing and go play! and in no time you will be constructing new recipes, new concepts, new menus , new restaurants and new cusines maybe writing cookbooks.
Remember, I can't eat for you, I can't chew, swallow and digest for you. But I can cook for you. And by doing that I can make our life delicious!
I started helping around the kitchen when I was a toddler, by the time I got to middle school I was doing all the food shopping for our family with a giant backpack. When I went to college I finally decided to learn how to cook. I was so successful at doing this that I and most of my friends were kicked out of school instead of learning we were cooking and throwing parties. First I wanted to go Pro, but then I figured that a computer programmer job pays better and since then I consider cooking a non-profit public service. I never had a formal education as a chef, but I was cooking almost every day for 20 years,
I sudied many eastern and western, and fusion cusines, I keep learning, experimenting and getting better.
And now in the next 4 minutes I'm going to tell you all I know about cooking. Cooking is about people, ingredients, timing and construction.
People: when people enter your house come to greet them. Ask them about their day. Ask them what they want.
Offer them what you have. It can be food , drink, conversation a game - anything they want and you happen to have.
Don't focus on cooking. Focus on people and your parties will rock and people will think you're a good cook.
Don't cook too much, don't be exausted from cooking, leave enouph energy to interact and to entertain.
Ingredients: According to Mike Pollan food rules are simple: eat food , not too much, mostly plants.
Food is something your great grandma would recognize as food, not too much is hard and deserves a separate speach, mostly plants means fruits and vegetables. Have them in the house. Don't buy in bulk, have them on display and let people pick what they want. Wash them, clean them puth them on the nice plate. The less you do the better, but whatever you do, do it well. Let your guests make their own salad or at least consult them about what goes in.
Timing: know what happens to the ingredients as you submerge them to heat. Know what happens to them after 5 minutes on the table or 5 days in the fridge. Know when your guest are hungry. the best condiment for the food is hunger, so serve your meals just in time.
Soup is just a salad with boiling water, but you need to manage the timing: know your ingredients and you won't undercook or overcook them
Construction: If you mastered the first three you'll be a good cook, better then most people. Proper construction is what makes you great. But intuitively you know how to do it: it's just like playing with Lego blocks. you put this ingridient with that, apply this technique for that amount of time and see what happens. Most cookbooks are just like this pictures that come in the bucket of lego blocks: This is how you do a house. This is how you make a boat. But the real fun begins when you throw the pictures away and begin building for real. There's no such thing as Lego champion and Lego expert. you can do it forever and get better and have fun. Cooking is the same. Take the building blocs: People, Ingredients, Timing and go play! and in no time you will be constructing new recipes, new concepts, new menus , new restaurants and new cusines maybe writing cookbooks.
Remember, I can't eat for you, I can't chew, swallow and digest for you. But I can cook for you. And by doing that I can make our life delicious!