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I like her advice to look for similar proportions or preparation patterns in recipes, in order to understand the fundamentals of certain types of dishes.

I feel utterly comfortable doing my own thing with most types of dishes, but baked goods are another matter. I don't make them often enough to commit the proportions to memory.

that is exactly how i feel about cooking: i never, EVER follow a recipe 100%, either on purpose or by mistake (much to the chagrin of my BF). sometimes it works wonderfully, and sometimes it bombs, but it's always a great learning experience...which is what i write about here: http://www.sustainablediet.blogspot.com

I love Jenni's site. It's humorous, educational, and best of all personal. She's been a huge help to me in my maturation as a cook.

Will
http://recipeplay.com

I often cook by feel, but not bake. I think I did learn partially from recipes and partially from my Mom and partially from "I have X, Y and Z and I need dinner. Let's see if they work together!" I take a great deal of pleasure in tasting and adding a bit of this and hmmm, it needs some of that but experience using a recipe gave me something to work from. I was pretty horrified when I called my mom in college to find out what her recipe for spaghetti sauce was: brown some ground beef, pour in tomato sauce, add anything that smells Italian, simmer. But that's probably the point at which I started cooking without a recipe for things more complex than stir-fry.

I think it's easier to learn if you're not afraid of failure. If you give yourself permission to toss it if it's a complete horror, you'll feel better about trying something without a recipe. I know I've tossed at least a few things over the years.

When I first started cooking, as a kid, I had so much fun reading recipes and watching the ingredients transform into a completed dish. I followed the recipes to the T.

I have a very vivid memory of thinking, "I wonder if I'll ever reach the point where I don't have to follow a recipe, that would be awesome!" To me, reaching that goal seemed so far off.

Look at me now Ma!

I don't know how i feel about this. I often adapt recipes to my own taste, and sure i cook "be feel" here and there, but the fact is the things i come up with that involve no recipe are limited, and repetitive. I'm not a chef or a recipe writer, and all the advice in the world about learning to stop leaning on recipes and "learn to cook" won't get me there.

Don't get me wrong, i'm a perfectly good cook. I can execute quite well and have the basic techniques down. BUT, i still need a recipe for ingredients and help on how to pair the eggplant with the whatever else. I'm simply not the kind of person to go to a farmers market, pick up an eggplant, and know what to do with it. I'll take it home and jump on the internet to find a recipe.

That said, i am starting to feel a little insulted that it keeps being implied that we should all strive to cook without recipes, or else we're not real cooks, only people that follow instructions or whatever. The fact is, recipes are like a connect-the-dots. Not everyone can make the jump from connecting the dots to drawing freehand. Not everyone is an artist, no matter how much they practice. And i think that's just fine, thank you.

Very cool that this discussion is going on here! I had no idea, until folks started coming over to my place. Thanks for linking and for thinking that what I have to say is valuable. I appreciate it very much.

My point has never been to make anyone feel bad or defensive about whether or not they use recipes. I'm over the whole food snobbery thing. My point is to encourage everyone that, if they internalize procedures and techniques, they won't need the procedure spelled out for them. Learning to cook is a journey, and I don't think any of us ever stops learning.

I'm passionate about this topic, and I'm enjoying the debate.

Oh boy. I hope my response didn't come off as snobbish. I respect everyone's comfort zone with cooking. I use recipes every day and I'm a professional chef.

Every chef's "bible" is a collection of recipes. And every good chef knows that they will spend the rest of their lives gathering and learning recipes.

I believe, though, that anyone has the ability to create a meal without having to follow a recipe--if they really wanted to. And I would be more than happy to help anyone try.

Cooking can be incredibly simple or complex. A tuna salad sandwich, your tuna salad sandwich, is a recipe. If I liked someone's tuna salad sandwich I would ask them for the recipe. I could make my own without a recipe or according to my recipe or with someone else's recipe.

My thoughts have to do with my own growing process and I think that posts like these are thought provoking.

Wow, Art--I didn't think your comment was snobbish at all! I think everyone has those same thoughts--I know I did. It's never snobby to be proud of your ability and be confident and free in the kitchen.

It is snobby to have that ability, look down on those who don't yet, and refuse to share your knowledge. I've seen a lot of that around on forums and such, and I think it's sad.

Oddly enough, I came across this article right after reading this post:

"A Shift to Recipe-less Cooking"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123808950657349873.html

Recipes slow me down! I NEVER follow them, I just use them for ideas. My family jokes with me that when I make something they love... HURRY UP AND WRITE IT DOWN or youll forget how you did it! Haha. Now I try to write the good stuff down, I guess creating my own recipes. Catch-22?!

awww, mh330, don't feel down!

I don't think 'cooking by feel' has to mean creating all of your own recipes by scratch. I think it just means not limiting yourself to only following recipes line by line without any influence of your own. the main thing is to not be intimidated by cooking. many people cling to recipes because they're convinced they couldn't do anything well themselves so they never try.

to me, cooking by feel comes from a lot of practice, taking small steps, and abandoning fear of making something terrible, (it also helps to have a well-stocked collection of spices). for some people, different combinations and what works together will just be absorbed as they practice and will come like intuition. others may have to sit down and specifically analyze what makes a dish successful, (i.e. citrus spice = nice), before they can manipulate it on their own. we all have different learning styles, so successfully cooking by feel may just come from a different approach.

but whether anyone cooks 100% from feel or 100% from recipes, the most important thing is that they enjoy it!

Synchronicity strikes.

I'm in the middle of discussing this on by blog, though I take a slightly different approach - less 'cooking by feel' and more 'learning from recipes' ...and remixing them.

I find recipe-less cooking approaches to be of tremendous help when improvising in the kitchen. One book that I found particularly interesting is Michael Ruhlman's "Ratio". He does a fantastic job of helping people understand basic ingredients and substitutes - basically a foundations course for home cooking. A must for full time workers and single parents.

For those of you who already practice recipe-less cooking - show off what you can do on http://www.chef2video.com