Meals and Outfits.

You learned how to dress yourself, you can learn how to cook.

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While researching bookmark organization methods, specifically for my laptop's countless recipe bookmarks, I read one woman's technique that I mentally filed away because, although it was logical, it didn't meet my needs of an ingredient-based system.  She organized her recipes by cooking method.

Since reading her cooking method-based approach it's been simmering on my back burner, if you will, especially while I'm reviewing a recipe in front of the stove realizing that I've made a similar dish with different ingredients.

Usually when I Google for recipe ideas it stems from a flavor I'm craving or curious about, or from various perishable foods in my kitchen that I must use soon.  A few recipes might come close with ingredients or technique but rarely do I find one that I follow step by step.  Now, after eight years of ruling the kitchen cooking meals regularly, I can (for the most part) comfortably make it up as I go along, with wildly varying degrees of success.  More often than not, though, I am working loosely from a couple found recipes.

As I touched on in my last post, I've struggled a little bit lately on coming up with dinner ideas.  Just as I like to mix and match clothing pieces to make new outfits, I also like to mix it up in the kitchen to avoid a weekly rut of predictable meals.  This clothing analogy (I love analogies!) runs parallel to my pondering on cooking methods.

Putting an outfit together is similar to assembling a meal – there are various components you combine until you are satisfied with the outcome.  Clothing combinations can be categorized as easily as tops, bottoms, and shoes; or you can be more specific with a short-sleeved top, long pants, and sneakers.  You can get as specific as you want but it's pretty easy to see the general categories.  Sometimes you assemble an outfit based on a color, the weather, or an event.  I linked this thought with how I search for recipes, by flavor, season, or necessity.  I've often compared flavor combinations with color combinations and this simply broadens that idea.

Recently while cooking I've been trying to find my cooking method categories, such as pasta with sauce or protein fillet with pan reduction, which has piqued my interest in learning more techniques.  I've enjoyed clothing as a creative outlet for as long as I can remember (literally!) and using that same creativity through food seems like a natural extension.

This is as far in the process as I've come at this point.  Hopefully I've strung my thoughts together well enough to convey the idea and my excitement about it.  I'm not sure how deep how I want to delve but with internet access and a library I have plenty of resources at no cost.  Just as you wear clothing out of necessity, you eat out of necessity as well; There is no reason not to have fun while doing so.



(By the way, the boneless chicken breast with skin that I bought at a local grocery store the other day worked out to $1.17 a pound!  I hope I did the math right, 533 grams for ¥202.)