261 - let him cook 🧑🍳🍳
Hey there, !
Look at this bachelor's fridge - how brave he is to share such an insight into his life.
Cue applause.
See the wondrous display of convenience-driven bachelor staples like: kimchi and gochujang, chicken stock that was used once a month ago but probably won't be used for another month, the ever-present cheese and sliced meats drawer, the tastefully arranged sauces and marinades (wow), the steak sitting at the back of the fridge bought a week ago because it would last for a while hidden behind the sausages that are hopefully not expired yet, the eggs that seemingly never go off, the sad eggplant (aww), the elusively shadowy fruit box, and the watermelon for...one? (HAHAHA) also, not pictured here: (too many) boxes of pasta and instant noodles, spices galore, and my favourite little salt bin.
I don't always meal prep, but since I've been home more, I've been able to cook more consistently for lunches and dinners.
It's great to have the time for it, rather than needing to meal prep for the week and eating the same thing every day, though having multiple days at home to cook unfortunately means I get a bit lazy at cleaning up...and if I forget to put my utensils away, sometimes Gandalf will go adventuring and find something to lick. Bad cat!
I also don't really meal plan when I go grocery shopping - I ✨meal improv✨. Probably not the best idea, but for some reason the way I learnt to cook was always a bit more just...cobbling together things from what was in the fridge, and not being good at following recipes. This could be things like:
- I got a steak...I should probably add some vegies, and maybe just wrap it up? Let's do that!
- I've got some fish wings and...well, I'll make some sauced-up noodles with it, and chuck in some cucumber.
- Oh, I have an eggplant. And...well, not much else so maybe we'll just focus on having the eggplant and add some eggs for protein. Oh, and some of that bread that's a little stale?
I'm pretty sure I've said before somewhere in a newsletter in the past, but I hated recipe books because I never had the exact things they were looking for at home. Lemon juice? Nope - don't have any. You need spring onions? I just ran out! And harissa?
Look - can we just cut the crap and you tell me what I can do in my kitchen right now??
And then when I tried to substitute stuff it was never right! (primarily because I didn't know what I was doing). I would try and just...leave out the soy sauce. Or not put in lemon juice. Or not use cream cos I didn't have it. And then it tasted shit and I blamed the recipe.
Obviously it was me in the wrong but still - why do I have to buy all these one-use spices and sauces to make a dish??
Why can't I just make it up with what I've got?
(Vince's note: Salt Fat Acid Heat was a godsend to ensuring I understand why things are put into recipes. It helped enormously. I will recommend this forever and ever.)
Now, because I'm a meal improv-er, it means that when I go to buy groceries, I'm just looking at whether I can have enough meat and fresh groceries that'll last a week or two. I have to sort in my head how many anticipated meals there'll be, and just buy enough protein and vegies to cover it...approximately. This way of buying encourages me to cook, because it means that:
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I've already locked in the purchase price from the weekend that I bought it, so it would be a waste to let the food go to waste. I do not like to waste things.
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Food goes off which means that it's essentially a race! If you think about it, it's like this:
And you have to make sure that you can catch each of these expiry dates before they land so you don't die. If not...MOLD permeates every single one of these things and makes me sigh with sadness when I have to chuck moldy things out (except kimchi which seemingly never dies (or maybe I just eat it too quickly)).
It's the tangible sign of failure that I do my best to avoid.
There's a delicate balance of knowing when things are going to go off, and making sure that I'm not going to die. I vibe with cooks who are like 'look, there are best before dates, but you're a human who has 5 senses that can be used to see if the meat you're about to eat looks weird or smells bad or when you touch it it's slimy'.
Add to that the complications of:
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Too often miscalculating the amount of food that can be made because it's easier to do just 1 carrot or 1 tomato that turns into at least 2 servings of food (pasta, stir-fry, whatever) that, sure, becomes leftovers, but then that pushes back the other fresh food I have in my fridge because leftovers enter the stack at a higher priority than other things (also because there's a lower barrier to entry to eating it (i.e. I don't have to cook anything)).
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The #feelsbad when I have to throw out food that gets mouldy because I didn't get to it quick enough. I try my best to keep everything as much as possible but still, it's hard :(
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I don't want to freeze everything because then that defeats the purpose of trying to estimate and buy for a week or two - if everything was in the freezer then I have the added problem of having to defrost things, and it getting freezer burn, and I mean maybe it's a Canto thing but just generally wanting to eat more fresh stuff if I can!
Anyway rant nearly over - last point: they should have half sizes at restaurants and single servings of food because I wanna try all of the good shit on your menu but one meal is like $25 so what am I supposed to DO.
Okay rant over, back to your job now citizen.
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Prisoners - 4 stars - Denis Villeneuve does some good shit in trying to build a crime thriller a la Se7en or Zodiac - I think he hit the solid middle of it, with some good twisty turns here and there. Fantastic performances all around tbh. Jake Gyllenhaal's blinking has to be studied, as well as Paul Dano's cheek. It's a bit long, but it's still a good 'un. Recommended!
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Lagoon Dining - been watching this on Instagram for a while and finally got a chance to go - the fried chicken is divine and the asian dishes they serve are actually quite authentic! It's more of a fusion place but it's got a nice ambience which we love <3 Recommended!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Astronaut - YouTube videos from space - like StumbleUpon, but for a very specific type of YouTube video.
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Porygon Was Innocent: An epileptic perspective on Pokémon's “Electric Soldier Porygon” - weird but cool bit of anime history; why Japanese anime has to design around epilepsy.
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Ted Chiang: "The machines we have now are not conscious" - related to a piece I wrote a few weeks ago...AI isn't thinking! There's so much more to language that he articulates much better than I can.