You know how recipes first list all the ingredients and then say 'Mix these two, and then add such and such' and the like? if you have sugar and butter, for example, you always mix them together first (or maybe with eggs if that's also an ingredient).

Well, I usually don't get around to reading past the ingredients list until too late. And I don't worry about doing things in an order that makes sense to me, either. I'll think to myself 'I'm probably supposed to do these two together first' or 'don't put the baking soda in too soon!' but then I'll just go ahead and toss the ingredients all in and then mix.

I've watched a lot of Good Eats, so I know better. I'll modify recipes to my liking. (For the cookies I just made, I was going to add salt because you should always put salt in most anything you bake--sadly, I forgot. I do that a lot.)

But I usually don't really think about things much when cooking. It'll work out, I always assume.

Luckily, given enough sugar, cookies still taste okay.

I've been making calzone (and sometimes just bread, though it's a bit sweet) using this recipe for some time now. Yesterday, I actually used it for pizza, of all things. The best part about pizza (or calzone) is that you can use random toppings/fillings and they'll taste pretty good.

Staples for pizza are baby spinach, mushrooms, and perhaps onions, but there's plenty more to try. Black beans are a bit unusual, but quite good on pizza, it turns out. Today I'm trying adding some ricotta cheese (part with mozarella, part as the only cheese--if you don't hate ricotta cheese, TRY THIS). Green bell peppers, of course, are always an option. Tomato works. (Yes, I know there's already tomato sauce.) Extra garlic on top is a good idea.

Perhaps the best pizza I ever had included artichoke hearts. Sadly, I don't have those.

What should I try next? Sprouts? Corns and peas? Curry powder? Chili powder? Cottage cheese? Potato? (Oooh, potato! Probably a bit flavourless, though.)

Pineapple does not belong on pizza. Nor do carrots. Sweet = bad unless it's a pizzert.

You know how if you can't cook then you're too stupid to live?

I was afraid I might be like that earlier today, but turns out I'm not.

I made cinnamon rolls. But there are twenty people living here, so I doubled the recipe. Except:
* I used two packets of yeast, probably making 2 or 4 tbsp instead of six.
* I rolled the thing out in a messy non-rectangle.
* I used Smart Balance instead of butter/margarine.
* I put the Smart Balance directly into the filling, rather than spreading and sprinkling. Then I added extra sugar because it wasn't spreading evenly and needed more filler.
* I used a pan that was not 9"*9" or 9"*18", but something rectangular.
* I put them in the over and forgot to note when I put them in.
* I got out the powered sugar for the topping and then put in table sugar without thinking. Then I added water because I didn't want milk.
* Then I added powdered sugar anyway. And more water.

But they came out great. Everyone loved them. 'Everyone' being about five people who were here. Nearly everyone was away today.

But, see, this merely emphasises my point from August. Even if you don't follow the recipe, things usually turn out fine. Cooking's easy. Don't leave meat raw and what can go wrong?

(You know how on Food Network people comment how baking requires precise measurements? LIES!)

If I was a contestant on Iron Chef, I'd be in trouble. Firstly because they all speak Japanese. Let's say this is actually Iron Chef America, just so we don't have to worry about that.

More importantly, however, because they'd whip the veil off a vat of live tuna and expect me to prepare a five course meal using them as the central ingredient. In one hour. Without a cookbook.

My strategy would be this: 'Sous chefs GO!' Then I'd watch them do their thing.

My cooking skills are inadequate to be competing on Iron Chef. I don't even have a pair of orange Crocs.

But I would never say 'I can't cook'. The people who say that are saying something far, far more serious. They're saying that if you give them simple, straightforward, unambiguous directions, all the basic tools, and all the ingredients, they cannot bake a cake.

And that's scary. When someone makes such a ridiculous claim, your first thought should probably be 'Can you read?' If you can read and you're not a paraplegic, how can you possibly not be able to bake a cake? The book says '1 cup milk'. How do you mess that up? Grab an empty 7-11 SuperGulp cup and fill it with milk? Or maybe upon seeing the clear, simple instruction to add a cup of milk they proclaim 'No stupid book is going to tell me what to do!' and put in two cups just to show it who's boss.

These are the skills required for cooking:
* Measuring
* Mixing
* Pouring
* Reading simple instructions
* Following simple instructions

I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's the last item that gives them difficulties. This means not just that they can't cook, however. It means they can't drive ('speed limit 35? That means 35km/s, right?'), they can't go shopping ('the label says $3.99, but I'm going to pay $1.27 instead'), they can't do anything. No one is that stupid.¹

You can cook.

¹ I have said this a hundred times and every time I have been wrong. People are so stupid--and wilfully so, in most cases--that no matter how far I lower my expectations, someone will still manage to blow my mind.

You how dictionaries have all the words alphabeticalised? Not so with cookbooks. Some cookbooks (members of what we'll call the 'annoying, but passable' variety) have the recipes arranged by type of food: Breads, cakes (turns out Marie Antoinette was right), cookies, pastas, meats, vegetables, soups, and so on. Now, I think cakes, cookies, and pastas are all breads. I'm also under the impression that some recipes mix multiple ingredients, such as pork (meat) and beans (fruit, but categorised, no doubt, by these books as a vegetable). Still, if I want to make lasagne, and there's a pasta section, I can guess where to look.

Other cookbooks like to arrange the dishes by when the author thinks you should eat them. Breakfast, lunch, snack, supper, or dessert. Usually I can probably guess whether a type of cake is considered by the author to be a snack or a dessert (though I haven't tried), but are hod dogs lunch or supper? Are all cookies snack, or are some dessert? And why the hell does this old bat think it's her place to tell me I can't have pancakes for lunch or pizza for breakfast? Or roast beef for lunch, for that matter? When I make a list of people who should be making that decision, it comes to one person, and his name's not Betty.

'But, ah!' you might say. 'Ah! These books have indexes! Indexes are alphabetical!'
'Tis true. The index is alphabeticalised. But by this I mean 'Pasta' comes after 'Meats'. The index oftentimes is no flatter than the contents itself. Lasagne still comes after Sugar Cookies.

You might think this is what we refer to as a 'Table of Contents'? No, the TOC is at the front of the book and lists only half the sections. I don't mean, 'Only H2 and H3', but 'Only H2 and some of H3'.

There are only three ways to cook: Know what you're doing, trial and error, and Google.

I mostly cook for people who would dislike my taking the second route, so I tend to use Google.

(In the textarea, 'use Google' is wrapped onto its own line and makes me wonder what amazingness such a package could do. Prolly just an interface to the web search. Bah.)

Almost forgot: When you finally do find the lasagne recipe, it assumes you already have pre-cooked noodles. No, dumbass, you're supposed to tell me HOW to cook the damn things. Luckily, my brother noded it years ago.