I'm not a professional cook, but I like to cook. Not just "it's fun to cook once in a while" or "I have a recipe or two that I make every so often," but "I like to cook and I do so just about every day and I like to make new recipes and play with old recipes to make them better and I like making food look pretty and I like making people say 'yum' and I like putting together big lavish spreads and I like making simple small lunches on rainy days and I like putting together picnics on sunny days and I like..."

       So I have some experience in a kitchen. From experience is wisdom gained. Most people seem to look at food wrong, which makes cooking it harder. There are some viewpoints and analyses that can change completely the way one approaches food and vastly enlarge one's culinary repertoire.

       And, since it is my web page about things I want to say, I'm going to say what I want to say about food.

       Cookbooks are misleading. The usual way to think of a cookbook is as a collection of recipes. For each recipe you've got to have just the right set of ingredients set aside before you begin, and you've got to follow the steps just right to avoid disaster. This just isn't the case.

       Food doesn't act all that different if you change this or that from any given recipe. The presence or absence of a dash of pepper cannot make too much difference to your eggs. And how much more done will your baked potato be if you bake it for 10 minutes more or less than exactly one hour?

       The first step to a free kitchen is to free oneself of the cookbook's restraints. Try reading the recipe differently. Instead of reading the ingredients list, go straight to the procedure. Every time it asks for "this, this, this and this spice," hear in your mind "your own selection of spices." If it asks for cubes of chicken, try strips instead. Substitute steak for pork chops. Add rum instead of wine. Whatever.

       Some better cookbooks already start to break this idea down. They're arranged in sections by main recipe element. Meat, bread, soup, eggs & cheese, vegetable. They let you know that you don't need to have a specific recipe in mind, just an idea of the basic type of food you want to prepare. Just remember, above all, that your cookbook is there to advise, not to constrain.

       Once you break free from the cookbook fallacy, you'll start to notice that every recipe tends to have similar elements. As you experiment further, you might find that different type of foods are usually prepared in one of only a few different methods, with only minor changes from recipe to recipe. This is the foundation of cooking.

       For any recipe you might want to create, there are several basic elements. These elements can be taken out of the recipe and used elsewhere or in different combinations. Each element can be changed or tweaked in and of itself to change the overall flavor of the meal. Proportions can be changed in each element to change the appearance of the dish. Learn each element on it's own and soon you'll be able to throw together any old this and whatever that to make an entirely new and exciting meal that people remember and ask for again.

       Once you can see the elements in the recipe, then you start to see the structure. Each dish has a foundation element and some structural elements. Each element also has a foundation and some structure. At some point it boils down into simple components that anyone should be able to put together. "Fish and chips" breaks down into "fish" and "chips." "Fish" becomes "fish" and "batter." "Batter" becomes "flour base" and "spices." "Chips" become "potatoes" and "spices." So you have fish and flour and potatoes and spices, all of which should be perfectly easy to deal with.

       Now you start getting to the art of the matter. You have the basic idea of the recipe, and you know which elements you need, but you don't know just how you want it to taste. The list "fish and flour and potatoes and spices" can be tweaked to be anything from "fish and chips" to some fancy elegant creation that sells in fancy elegant restaurants with fancy elegant french names for a fancy elegant fifty bucks a fancy elegant pop.

       How do you turn one into the other? In part, better silverware. Presentation makes a big difference. But presentation is just how the food looks on the plate. Anyone artistic can make a beautiful arrangement of anything, regardless of how good it actually tastes. To cover the other half of the coin, you need to make it taste good.

       First, consider the basic elements. How does each compliment the other? A dish arranged with a serving of meat and a serving of vegetables usually involves each dish being it's own creation, and therefore each is flavored in it's own way. Sauced recipes usually involve a rather bland base element with a rich sauce element designed to enhance the flavor of the base element. You decide what basic elements to add and how to tweak each one. This is why you often hear menu selections as "pasta in white sauce." Rather than make up a name for it, they're just describing it.

       Now you can decide how each basic element will taste. The rule of thumb here is "use your nose." Think of the basic ingredients in the elemental recipe and, at the same time, sniff at things that you think might go well in the mix. If the two senses agree, in it goes. If a fight ensues between thought and scent, set it aside. If the combination makes you want to take your honey to tahiti to play illicit games in the surf, add a little more of that. Don't be afraid to add stuff. If you're going to add anything, you have to add enough to taste it or it isn't worth adding. Just don't add so much that you overwhelm the dish. Toss some in untill it tastes right. Measuring is for pansies.

       Don't worry too much if, at this point, you can't really taste the final result. You'll get to play with that later. Get somewhere close to the mark now, and later you can tweak at will. Often you'll find that what you've gotten is just as good or even better than what you started out to achieve.

       The final step, of course, is to combine all of your basic elements and taste again. Is it missing something? Sniff around and find it. Too much of something else? Sniff around for something that corrects it. You'll get what you want, or at least something edible, eventually. Keep playing.

       So here you finally are at the point where you really need to know specific foods and how they behave. You've got some advantages that you didn't have before, though. You don't have to say, "I want Fettuccini Alfredo;" you can say, "I want a pasta in a white sauce." Now, instead of following an entire recipe, you can throw some noodles on to boil and toss together a basic white sauce and start thinking about cheese and spices.

       So here are some things you'll just plain need to know. Cuts of meat. Vegetables. How to trim meat. Ways to chop, slice, cut and shred various meats and veggies. The basic ways to heat food, such as sear, broil, boil, char, simmer, fry, bake, steam and zap. How and when to use various greases, like butter and oil. When to use which types of spices, and how much of which to use. Whether to cook slow or fast. Whether to cook hot or just warm.

       These, and others, are really just technique. Once you hear about them, you know them. They don't involve a lot of art. Just know them and use them when you need them.

       A few tips. Slower cooking at slightly lower temperatures makes food more tender and infuses more flavor into the food. High heat can damage food in a heartbeat and should be used only to put a crust on meats which are already completely thawed or to warm up foods in a liquid media (frying, soups, boiling...) Most powdered spices can be added at any point, but fresh spices like garlic and onion do well if added early so they can impart their juices to the rest of the food. Most peppers (black, red, cayenne, chili, white, jalapeno...) are very intense, and should be added sparingly.

       Some foundation elements. Seared meat. Infused meat. Marinated meat. (Apologies for short shrifting vegetarian pansies.) Rice. Pasta. White sauce. Red sauce. Marinara. Potato. Green veggies. Corn. Tomato. Fish. Mexican (spicy meat and beans.) Italian (pasta and sauces.) Oriental (rice and mixes of steamed veggies.) Hell, everything can be a foundation. Say to yourself, "I feel like X." Then say, "Y tastes good on X" or "I like X made Z way." Then do it.