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Cake day: March 2nd, 2025

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  • For bullet point one, do something called mise en place. Basically, measure out all your ingredients and lay them out before you start cooking, so you don’t have to worry about how much tomato to pour in.

    Two and three are solved by reading the recipe before cooking, and making a game plan about how you’re going to do each step. Recipes don’t expire, you have time to plan things out.

    For four, if you’re given a time, usually that means that the recipe has a larger margin for error on cooking something, so simply following the time will leave you with a proper cook. Unless the recipe sucks, which does happen. Getting a reputable recipe book avoids that problem.

    For five: most recipe books are written for busy people who just want to put good food on the table. So you’re not getting a technical explanation because you’re not expected to know or care why something works.

    But there are books that go into more details. But they’re less recipe books and more technical manuals. Nomas guide to fermentation goes into the hows and why’s of their methods, give you starter recipes, then encourage you to create your own recipes. Generally, the technical books are specialized, and for people who want to make cooking into a dedicated hobby. If that’s your goal, I suggest finding a particular interest and look for book recommendations from hobbyists. By particular interest, I mean deciding if you want to be good at baking bread, or fermenting, or making pasta, or smoking meats. In other words, finding your “thing”.