Mageirocophobia On The Rise

Hello my fellow Omnivores and welcome. Question, have you been spending far too much of your disposable income ( is that a stupid term , or what?) on restaurant dining? If you have, it may not be your fault , you might just  be suffering from an extreme case of “Mageirocophobia”. Now, I am just going to wait for a second while all you tech nerds type it into your  Duck Duck Go (another dumb name) or Dogpile or whatever,  like you love to do. Da,da,da,da, correct my friends, it is a fancy term for something very real affecting all our pocketbooks daily, “Fear of Cooking”.  So let me ask you a quick question, how many of you like to cook? We’ve got one, two, OK almost nobody. Why? Because when you are  standing at the stove, directions in hand trying your best not to ruin everything, the act of cooking can be , well, overwhelming to say the least and at best,  a thankless and messy hassle about as much fun as a voluntary root canal. So what can we do besides giving up and just making a peanut and jelly sandwich ( which can be pretty good).  I am glad you asked . First off we need to change our  mindset of how we see cooking in general  , reframing  it as less of a chore and more of a creative learning process. Much like art, cooking doesn’t have to be perfect , but instead of correcting mistakes with erasers, you have chicken stock. Next is to seriously “Upskill”, which you can  begin to do by learning the basics of my cooking bible by the fabulous Samin Nosrat,  “Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat”. The gist of this is that once you learn to control these four things to impact flavor, you can cook anything. For instance, salt as you know enhances flavor, but too much is not good. So you need to be aware of the salt added by the other ingredients and moderate it accordingly. Ditto fats ( butter, oils and the like) compounds that  deliver flavors and add texture. Begin by learning a bit about  oils and when to use each,  olive oil (almost always) canola for high temp and butter for richness. Then, teach yourself about  acids, and use  a squeeze of lemon or vinegar when needed at the end to freshen  your dish. And lastly and most importantly learn to control heat, the factor that  completely transforms your dish and determines the final texture. First off, buy a good thermometer and use it. Learn to cook food with the proper amount of heat  ( usually 420) and know the finishing temperatures of everything ( chicken 165, fish 145) . Bingo, you can cook. (Sorry for all the technical stuff but it had to be done)  See, when you break it all down, it is not so hard. As someone once told me,  “Anyone can cook, you just have to want to”). Lastly, cooking takes a bit of practice, so don't get discouraged. It's like someone who swings a golf club once and says “I’m not good at this”. Once you begin to master the four basics above you will shift from cooking in survival mode to braver , freer cooking  where you experiment with different ingredients, create  and actually start to have a little fun. So good luck my friends on your adventure and if none of this works out for you,  hey, there's always  Dominoes.