7 Lessons, 4 Books, 1 Cooking Show: How I Learned to Cook

 On the second date with my future husband, I announced, “I don’t cook.”  His response was, “I didn’t ask, but thanks for the info.” 

I wanted to put it out there right from the start. I grew up in a traditional household. Mother cooked every meal for much of my parents’ sixty-seven years of marriage.  That was how things were back in 1954 when they married, and the expectation stuck.    

My father was considered quite progressive regarding gender-role assignments in the home.  He had to be.  With nine children and both parents working, the household would only have functioned if everyone had pitched in to do whatever needed to be done: laundry, dishes, child care, etc.  But my father drew the line at cooking.  

There could be no “happily ever after” for a potential suitor and me if the agreement included any expectation that I be responsible for the bulk of the cooking—hence the full disclosure, “I don’t cook” announcement.

My husband and I, both full-time public educators, decided early on in our marriage that household labor would be decided by three factors: who is better at the task, who enjoys it more, and who has the time? Our cooking division of labor was about 50, 30, 20 - my spouse, me, and eating out.  

In 2020, I decided to learn to cook. Two events influenced this decision: the 2020 pandemic and the television show The Great British Baking Show.

The COVID-19 Pandemic kept most of us holed up in our homes for months during the spring of 2020. With more time at home and outings limited to essential-only, my husband and I had to plan meals, grocery shop, and meal prep well in advance. This planning was crucial to my cooking education! Lesson 1: Make sure you have all the ingredients for what you want to make.

I have watched every episode of The Great British Baking Show!  Aside from being quite entertaining, it taught me several important lessons, one of which is this  - Good cooks follow recipes.  For years, I thought good cooks innately knew how to make stuff.  Not so.  Good cooks read and follow recipes.  I therefore concluded that if I know how to read and follow directions, I should be able to cook. Lesson 2: Follow a recipe.

I chose to look for a recipe for a staple in Mexican cuisine, carne guisada, or beef with gravy.  I consulted several cookbooks and ultimately chose a recipe from Cheryl Alters Jamison’s book Texas Slow Cooker. I figured that using a slow cooker would be the safest option. Is it even possible to burn something in a crock pot?  I read the recipe twice to make certain I understood the directions.  I checked to make sure I had all the ingredients, then confidently followed the recipe.  I pretty much just put everything in the crock pot, stirred a few times, set a timer, and let it do its thing.  Turns out that’s cooking! 

Successfully preparing one dish and getting rave reviews gave me confidence in the kitchen, and I was ready to learn more. I tried several other recipes from this one book, each turning out as it should and being really tasty

Having mastered crockpot cooking, it was time to move on to the oven and stovetop, where setting and maintaining the right temperature is crucial—like, things could burn! Cooking with a flame felt dubious at best. To balance my trepidation about learning a new appliance, I opted to keep the ingredients and recipes to a minimum. That’s where 5 Ingredients: Quick and Easy Food by Jamie Oliver came into play.  

The recipes in this book are straightforward.  Each is accompanied by a full-color photo of the 5 ingredients, a list of the ingredients and their measures, no more than 2 or 3 short paragraphs of directions, and a full-color image of the finished dish. For me, the ability to compare my dish to the ideal felt supportive, much like bumpers at the bowling alley.

Though the recipes proved to be easy enough and pretty tasty, there were a few duds. Turns out the Brits have some unusual dishes.  Case in point - “Crazy Simple Fish Pie.”  I thought I’d try this recipe.  I like simple, I like fish, and I like pie.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this dish was not good!  Suffice it to say it tasted exactly like it sounds…fish…pie. How two things I generally enjoy could be so horribly paired, I’ll never know, as I’m never eating fish pie again!  Lesson 3: Not every recipe will be a hit, even when followed precisely.
On The Great British Baking Show, contestants have a large workspace, a high-quality stand mixer, several timers, thermometers, whisks, spoons, and other assorted cooking and baking paraphernalia. This brings us to Lesson 4: Use the right tools. In the past, my timer was a guesstimate, and my test for doneness was the lack of burnt black edges.  It’s incredible how much better your food will turn out when you use a timer and a food thermometer!  

With growing confidence and an expanding repertoire, I became significantly more adventurous in cooking and baking.  Two years ago, I got really into baking bread. I pored over Ken Forkish’s book Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza. Forkish provides excellent information on the principles and science of breadmaking, includes a variety of simple and complex recipes, and describes proven techniques for making top-quality bread at home.  I bought all the suggested equipment: dough-rising tubs, natural proofing baskets, a bench scraper/dough knife, and a cast-iron Dutch oven. I was set! The ingredients for a basic country loaf couldn’t be simpler!  But bread-making is not simple!  The patience it takes to get through the production of a single loaf would test that of a saint, what with all the kneading, two rounds of proofing, and the final bake. For those of you familiar with The Great British Baking Show, you know full well how unrealistic time allowances cause havoc in the tent!  And so Lesson 5:  Allow yourself plenty of time. 

I just finished watching Season 11 of The Great British Baking Show. Though I’ve made cakes from box mixes, chocolate chip cookies, and a pie or two throughout my life, I decided to learn to bake a cake from scratch and decorate it beautifully. So, I turned to the Queen of Bakes, Dame Mary Berry.

I initially set out to make every recipe in Berry’s book a la Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, the 2005 book by Julie Powell.

I began with recipe number 1, Victoria Sponge Sandwich. I followed the recipe and produced a nice-looking cake that tasted...OK.

I went on to recipe number 2, Lemon Sponge. It was basically the same as recipe number one; it just swapped lemon zest for vanilla and lemon curd filling instead of whipped cream.

In the third recipe, I was once again mixing the same ingredients together, just adjusting the flavorings. Clearly, there was a pattern here. Every cake had basically the same ingredients. After essentially making the exact same cake three times, it became clear that many cooks seem to know how to make things because they’ve likely followed the same recipe so many times that it’s been committed to memory. Lesson 6: Practice, Practice, Practice!

But even when following a very familiar recipe, one can encounter obstacles. When making a Buche de Noel for the holidays, I realized I was missing one egg. Not wanting to go out in the cold for a single egg, I Googled, “What can I do if I’m missing an egg from a recipe?”  Turns out one can substitute 1/4 cup of applesauce for one egg! The final lesson…for now anyway —Lesson 7: There’s Always More to Learn.

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All photos by Paulette Rodriguez

This post previously appeared on the Waunakee Public Library blog on January 10, 2024. Permission to repost here granted.