Here at the Kitchn, we all spend a lot of time teaching ourselves new skills, trying out new recipes, and improving our technique. This weekend, let's flip the tables a bit, shall we? Let's invite someone into our kitchens and share some of what we've worked so hard to learn! It could be a best friend, your 5-year-old, a neighbor, or a parent - what one skill would you like to pass on?
Weekend Project: Pass on Your Skills!
Some of you might be thinking that you don't know enough yourselves to teach anything to anyone else. To those of you thinking this, we would give you a hug and say that even if you just stumbled across this site today and currently use your oven to store winter sweaters, we're willing to bet that you know more than you think you know when it comes to cooking.
Take a minute to think about the kind of cooking you already do, or the kind of cooking you grew up with. Even the ability to taste a dish and know that it's good is a skill. And if you just finished up doing the Kitchn Cure, we know you definitely have at least one new skill to share!
We also know that some of you might be shy about opening up your kitchen to someone else. We understand this too! But think about it - if your kitchen and your cooking time is a refuge for you, it probably could be for someone else as well. That can be a great gift to give.
You can tell your girlfriends you're making handmade pasta and to bring over a bottle of wine if they want to help out. Or you can simply hand your spouse a spoon and tell him or her to stir while you sprinkle in some flour. Whatever you do, make it fun! If you're showing them something you love, chances are they'll love it too.
Who do you think would love an invitation into your kitchen, and what would you like to share with them?
Related: Nostalgia: Recipes Our Fathers Taught Us
(Image: Flickr member René_Ehrhardt licensed under Creative Commons)
Comments (5)
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I think experimentation is possibly the best skill a person can learn. Many of my friends were brought up by mothers who had a box full of recipe cards and followed to the T the one on the back of the Nestle bag of chocolate chips.
If no one experiments, food doesn't evolve, tastes stagnate, and the status quo never gets broken.
I don't use recipes; I know what should go well together and I take chances when I'm not sure if something will work. I've had to toss or salvage my fair share of wrongs, but for the large part, the best meals I've made have come from simply tasting as I cook, adding a bit of this and that, and finding a complimentary side.
To properly experiment, follow these steps:
1. Remember foods that others have made that you like.
2. Try to recreate them by taste. (And I repeat, as you cook...taste, taste, taste! Never serve something you wouldn't yourself eat.)
3. Note the faults for next time.
4. Ask for feedback from others.
5. Rinse, repeat.
view bfootnovellista's profile
My teenage niece is visiting next week to kick off her summer break before her job starts. We will be cooking together up a storm. We are both excited. She is super jazzed to learn to make my soymilk.
view kmarie's profile
Cooking and baking by ratio rather than recipe.
I taught the kids in my family to cook and bake, just the way my mother taught me, and it helped them develop a lot of self-confidence. I knew it had an impact when the eldest, in a conspiratorial whisper, asked me to teach him some 'appeteasers' that would impress his new girlfriend (he was all of 14, g).
view Rucy's profile
I'm looking forward to the comments here! Inspired by someone's post a while back looking for comprehensive books to help her teach her boyfriend how to cook (rather than how to read a recipe), I wanted to try teaching my engineer boyfriend techniques (who is perfectly competent, but agonizingly slow when it's his night to cook because he relies on complicated and precise recipes), and we're off to a great start.
Our first try was fish baked in parchment.
I'm trying to lure him in so I admit I did a lot of prep, julienning carrots and snow peas and mushrooms and various sprouts and herbs and lining up a variety of condiments so that all he had to do was assemble his own and twist it up. I figure we start with the fun creative part, and then we'll backtrack to the chopping.
I figure we'll try stir fry next. And then maybe souffle, I think he'll be excited by the egg whites. What are other people doing? Is anyone trying a structured approach?
view tasterspoon's profile
Organization -- if my kitchen isn't organized so that everything is at-the-ready, I typically can't get myself primed enough to go digging for it. Instead, I'm inclined to just grab what is easy/at the front.
A well organized kitchen not only makes cooking/baking more enjoyable and easier, it also creates a nice vibe that encourages people to spend more time there.
If I were passing on only one skill, that's what it would be - I'd help them get their kitchen all set up so that whenever a creative urge or hunger pang hits, they'll have a functional, efficient space that allows them to focus on the food, not on the finding.
view auroralaura's profile