It's one of those Twitter threads you can spend the afternoon on. Recently, writer/editor @cottoncandaddy told her 100K followers about her date who was so clueless in the kitchen, he couldn't have cooked even if he was starving. Her tweet immediately went viral and has already accumulated nearly 290K likes. However, the best part isn't the reactions. It's the cooking fails in the comments. People have been telling stories about the worst food fails they've encountered and they're hilarious. From mistaking every ingredient in the fridge to not being able to follow basic instructions, these poor folks' attempts at cooking food will make you feel like a Michelin-star chef.
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If you don't want your friends to include your funny stories in a similar thread, there are some easy cooking tips that can improve your skills straight away. According to Fine Cooking, the first thing you can do is choke up on your chef's knife, "or better control, choke up on the handle to the point of putting your thumb and the side of your index finger onto the side of the blade right above the handle. Speaking of chef’s knives, invest in a good one (and keep it sharp). The longer, wider blade of a chef’s knife will give you speed, control, and confidence," the magazine wrote.
The next kitchen hack is to start your dishes with the best ingredients you can get. For example, imported Parmigiano-Reggiano is way better than domestic parmesan. In fact, you can hardly compare the two. Or if you're baking a cake, premium chocolate makes all the difference and fresh homemade breadcrumbs are superior to packaged crumbs by miles. You get the idea.
I voted you up because there are just as many terrible woman cooks as men ones
Now that you've got the good stuff, another life hack is to use your hands. "Hands are extremely sensitive and sophisticated cooking tools," the experts said. "You can develop this sense of touch by paying attention to how different foods feel at different degrees of doneness, even as you’re checking them with a thermometer, a toothpick, or a knife. Meat, for example, goes from being very soft when it’s rare to quite firm when well done. Touch can also indicate when a cake is baked, if dough is kneaded enough, and whether a pear is ripe."
A great way to instantly elevate your dishes to another level is by switching to kosher or sea salt. Kosher salt and sea salt have a much, much better flavor than ordinary table salt. Though food shouldn’t taste salty, falling on the other side of the spectrum and using little or no salt makes food boring.
Also, pick recipes that use descriptive words. Like, "bake until golden brown" or "boil until reduced by half." Don’t freak out if the actual amount of time it takes to reach the desired state is more or less than the time suggested in the recipe.
Cooking is a never-ending journey, full of ups and downs. Focus on the journey, not the setbacks. Take everything as a learning experience, apply yourself, and always. taste. throughout. the. process.
An engineer failing at the basic concept of stability is frightening.
In fairness you can get rye, oat, barley, chick pea and rice flours too
in fairness purple cauliflower doesn't often require ER treatment. Being an expert in one thing DOES NOT make you an expert in unrelated fields
I'm always thankful that our recipes are metric. The main ingredients are measured in grams or millilitres.
Note: this post originally had 55 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
The root of all evil is bad parenting. Well, most of it anyway, and certainly this here mess which invokes in me the eternal cry: WTF is wrong with people. All children should be taught how to cook for themselves, and others.
The root of evil is also bad teaching. It's not that hard to kindly and patiently explain directions to friends and lovers so they can learn, too! Kitchens are rife with cooks who think everyone should know what they know—and then mock them when they don't.
isn't that true for any job? I am IT, and I used to get so mad when someone called about printing problems for a printer that was not even plugged in (or some other similarly basic problem most end users could solve on their own). But the reality is that this is not their skill. I cannot build a rocking chair that is beautiful and elegant. I cannot calculate the fuel consumption for launching a rocket to Mars. I cannot draw to save my life! But I sure can help others with their computer problems...
I taught both my son and my daughter to cook. Which was a good thing since my son married a woman who couldn't cook! He did all the cooking. Which served him well. He is the best cook in our family. He can go to a restaurant and have something he liked and then come home and reproduce it! This is a talent that is all his own. I don't know where he learned to cook so well, but it wasn't me who taught him!
This comment has been deleted.
Cooking, like any skill, has nothing innately to do with one's gender or queerness/lack thereof. Societal factors sometimes dictate that 'straight men' are not taught how to cook, because it is seen as 'women's work.' It also seems to be a symptom of modern society in which people have largely given over the task of cooking for and feeding themselves and their families to major corporations. I was raised in a somewhat traditional southern culture, but there was still a heavy emphasis on cooking from BOTH of my parents. I watched them and began helping them in the kitchen as soon as I was old enough to walk. I did not realize until much later that so many other kids, even in my own town, did not have the benefit of such education. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a super chef, but the ability to cook basic meals for oneself is an invaluable life skill that everyone should learn.
My husband never learned to cook anything from scratch growing up. Everything came out of a box or a can. He once told me him and his friends made pizza crust, but had no cheese for it so they used crushed up Cheez-its. Now, I beg him to make lasagna because it turns out perfect every time. You just have to give them time. Many of these women didn't know how to cook until someone showed them how. All you have to do is have a little patience, teach them and they will get it. Kudos to the guys that at least tried, bless their hearts.
The root of all evil is bad parenting. Well, most of it anyway, and certainly this here mess which invokes in me the eternal cry: WTF is wrong with people. All children should be taught how to cook for themselves, and others.
The root of evil is also bad teaching. It's not that hard to kindly and patiently explain directions to friends and lovers so they can learn, too! Kitchens are rife with cooks who think everyone should know what they know—and then mock them when they don't.
isn't that true for any job? I am IT, and I used to get so mad when someone called about printing problems for a printer that was not even plugged in (or some other similarly basic problem most end users could solve on their own). But the reality is that this is not their skill. I cannot build a rocking chair that is beautiful and elegant. I cannot calculate the fuel consumption for launching a rocket to Mars. I cannot draw to save my life! But I sure can help others with their computer problems...
I taught both my son and my daughter to cook. Which was a good thing since my son married a woman who couldn't cook! He did all the cooking. Which served him well. He is the best cook in our family. He can go to a restaurant and have something he liked and then come home and reproduce it! This is a talent that is all his own. I don't know where he learned to cook so well, but it wasn't me who taught him!
This comment has been deleted.
Cooking, like any skill, has nothing innately to do with one's gender or queerness/lack thereof. Societal factors sometimes dictate that 'straight men' are not taught how to cook, because it is seen as 'women's work.' It also seems to be a symptom of modern society in which people have largely given over the task of cooking for and feeding themselves and their families to major corporations. I was raised in a somewhat traditional southern culture, but there was still a heavy emphasis on cooking from BOTH of my parents. I watched them and began helping them in the kitchen as soon as I was old enough to walk. I did not realize until much later that so many other kids, even in my own town, did not have the benefit of such education. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a super chef, but the ability to cook basic meals for oneself is an invaluable life skill that everyone should learn.
My husband never learned to cook anything from scratch growing up. Everything came out of a box or a can. He once told me him and his friends made pizza crust, but had no cheese for it so they used crushed up Cheez-its. Now, I beg him to make lasagna because it turns out perfect every time. You just have to give them time. Many of these women didn't know how to cook until someone showed them how. All you have to do is have a little patience, teach them and they will get it. Kudos to the guys that at least tried, bless their hearts.