Re: Cooking redefined

On 4/12/2025 6:38 PM, ItsJoanNotJoAnn wrote:

On Sat, 12 Apr 2025 22:22:51 +0000, Dave Smith wrote:

>
I have three brothers and we can all cook. I can confess to being the
best and they will agree. They have all acknowledged that.  While they
can cook complete meals they need a recipe to follow. I have recipes in
my head or I can fake things.  My younger brother can put on a meal
himself, but it is going to be part of his very limited repertoire,
probably something like canneloni  where he will mix an egg, some
ricotta and gated parm and stuff it into pasta tubes use a jar of sauce.
  My older brother taught me how to make pies but that is about the
extent of his baking.
>
>

My oldest brother could cook, how well I'm not sure.
I never saw my second brother ever stir a pot or
cook an egg, but he was great around a grill.  My
third brother didn't do much cooking that I ever saw
but he was more than willing to get in the kitchen
and peel potatoes and stir pots.  If there was an
'assembly line' of a recipe, he was right in the
middle doing his part.  My fourth brother is a pretty
good cook and will ask what he should add or omit
when a dish doesn't turn out as well as he had hoped.
His wife takes care of the cooking now.
 

Both of my brothers can cook, although their cooking preferences were vastly different.  I take partial credit for the middle brother learning to cook.  We were roommates for a time and I used to watch cooking shows on Saturday mornings.  He got in the habit of watching with them.  It seemed he was forever in the kitchen looking over my shoulder asking why did you do this or add that?  You should have seen the look on his face when I showed him how very little water it takes to make a cornstarch slurry for thickening a sauce. :)
He was pretty good with a grill, so I stepped it up and bought him a Brinkman charcoal smoker for his birthday.  He got the bright idea to smoke the Thanksgiving turkey.  Well, he stayed out the night before, partying until around 3AM.  He thought all he'd have to do was get up @ 6AM, fill the water pan (added onion, wine, some herbs), light the coals and toddle back to bed while the smoker did its thing.  It just so happened to be one of the coldest days of the year in Memphis.  Perhaps for that reason the coals wouldn't stay lit.  I think that turkey was finally done by 3PM.  It was smoked alright, but it wasn't the wow factor he was hoping for.  And there's not a heck of a lot you can do with leftover smoked turkey (other than sandwiches) that tastes great, either.
Jill