Konnie called me the other day, which kind of caught me off guard, because I wasn’t expecting to hear from her. Yes, we do talk frequently, but not daily, and we talked just the day before.
I asked her what was up. Again, we
had just talked for nearly an hour the day before. And let me remind you that
Konnie is busier than I am.
Konnie asked me for a recipe she
knew I would have. Uh, yeah, I do. Not written down, but my memory is still
good.
The thing is that at one point, she said
she tried to look up the recipe online, but couldn’t find anything close. She
was a bit shocked when I informed her, “Of course, it’s not online; I made it
up.”
So let’s make this quite clear. When we were ten, I was in the kitchen trying to
see if I could make something like the soup our grandmother frequently served
us, despite not having all the ingredients or knowing for sure what all of
those ingredients were.
Well, I gathered what I had, what I
could work with, and tried. I do remember at one point thinking the water I was
using should be brown, and eventually landed on adding bouillon cubes. At the
end, I still felt it needed more flavor, so I grabbed the first tin of spice I
could reach and dumped some of that in.
When I tasted the results, I thought
it was rather good and shared it with my siblings.
All this time, Konnie thought I had
made it from a recipe grandma taught me, when in reality, I was trying to copy
her from memory, with fewer ingredients, and not a complete knowledge of what she
used.
The thing is, I never realized that
she didn’t know I made that recipe up!
I thought that was common knowledge;
after all, I was in that kitchen that day alone.
And it isn’t like Konnie doesn’t
know I’ve made up another recipe.
Of course, in that instance, she
watched me working on and perfecting it and tasted all the attempts until I got
it right. She knew I made that one up.
So, the record is that I have made
up two recipes. One soup recipe and one cake recipe. She called me about the
soup recipe.
And no, I do not fool around in the
kitchen that much anymore.
I can still just throw stuff
together, except when it comes to baking, but I don’t do it as often as I used
to.
One of the other things I came up
with was frying up diced meat (as a teen I used hotdogs), adding diced precooked
potatoes (as a teen I used left over baked potatoes peeled and diced), some
diced onions, and when that was all nice and browned, I stirred in a couple of eggs.
These days, I use sausage or bacon,
frozen O’Brien Hash browns, and a few onions, green and sweet peppers, and (if
I have it) green onions, along with the salt and pepper. And if I’m feeling
bold, or have a tall glass of milk, I stir in a little red pepper flakes.
I might also add that for me, the
onions and peppers were pre-diced and frozen; I just use what I need and put
the rest back, same with the hashbrowns.
Quick and simple, and no prep in the
morning. All my prep could have been weeks in advance. So, it’s simple.
I keep telling myself I probably
could also make my hashbrowns using baked and cooled potatoes and freeze them
just like I do with the onions and peppers.
The thing is, I’m not a chef. Any
dish I make can be easily memorized and adapted to what’s available, except for
that cake recipe.
Baking is a lot harder than cooking.
In fact, I once watched a Rachel Raye show where she said she could cook but
couldn’t bake, and she didn’t know why.
It took me a few days to think about
that one, because, well, my husband could cook but not bake. But I eventually figured
it out.
With cooking, you can guess amounts
and just throw things together that should complement each other.
You can’t just throw things together
in baking; you have to be precise, or the results are going to be awful.
So, cooking is art; baking is
chemistry.
Plain and simple. But it also means
cooks like Rachel Raye are not as good as chefs like Gordon Ramsey, who can
cook and bake. Just remember, it takes two different skill sets, even if both result
in something edible (when done right).
Anyway, happy writing, everyone.
