Anonymous wrote:Why are people being so bitchy? Baking is harder than cooking, there are more specific terms and techniques, and the final result depends more on each step being completed correctly than in cooking. You know the old saying: cooking is an art but baking is a science. As much as I love to bake I would shy away from a recipe that involved whipping cream and beating egg whites unless I really had to have that particular thing, since they can be tricky to work with. And, I also don't own a stand mixer (although I have owned a hand mixer for a few years now).

I was surprised by the PP who said she is not going to teach her DD to cook. I see learning to cook like learning to swim or knowing how to do laundry, a basic life skill that everyone should have when they leave their parents' home. I don't think kids need to have lessons and advanced baking is something that I'd only involve DS in if he's truly interested, but basic cooking and baking is something I expect him to involved in helping with. I grew up helping my parents cook and I can remember the progression from being allowed to stir to being allowed to cut and it made me feel like I was making an important contribution to our household. Cooking meals shouldn't be one family member's hobby, it should be something everyone participates in (in my opinion).

To get to the OP's point, there are usually decent guides to basic terms in the front of general cookbooks. I know that Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison has an excellent glossary that helped me (an experienced but not expert cook) clarify and improve some techniques. The Joy of Cooking does as well.

Anonymous wrote:I understand your frustration OP, but you have to start somewhere and you have to aspire at least to something more than Hamburger Helper. You are not "learning to cook" if you only try recipes that require cutting and boiling. Practice builds confidence. And it's really not as hard as you think. People cook every day, even people who work.

Watch Food Network. Google demos. Pick a recipe that sounds good to you, one that involves a bit of effort, and try it. That's how we learn. No one is born knowing how to cook -- I learned in my 30s. But as PP noted, there is no reason an adult should not be able to cook a decent meal.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but as a beginner I see a lot of posts that are just well beyond beginning cooks or non-cooks and I thought I would point out why:

We don't know what it means to beat, fold, or whip. So telling us all we have to do is whip or fold or beat this or that until it's fluffy is not an easy or no-fail recipe. It's gobbledy-gook. Anything beyond stir or cut up needs to be explained.

We don't know what soft peaks or hard peaks are. So that's not an easy recipe or a beginner recipe. And although I know intellectually at this point what soft peaks look like, 3 out of 5 times, I can't achieve them, so I tend to avoid those recipes anyway.

A recipe that calls for three different steps -- for example, making your own crust, making the filling, and then decorating the top, is going to take HOURS for a beginner. I'm serious. We can't multi-task like experienced cooks. We can't watch a double-boiler and wash this and chop that at the same time. It's also, potentially, three different set-ups for failure. Utter and complete failure.

Recipes that call for cheesecloth, double-boilers, parchment, and other such implements -- not beginning recipes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the replies. Actually, I can cook a fairly decent meal. I make a lot of chicken dishes; chili; stir-fries; do a good roast; flank steak; know how to make Thanksgiving dinner and have been doing it for years on my own; can make a simple cake, brownies, etc. I always contribute to potlucks. (Okay, hold the applause.)

The point of my post was more that sometimes I see recipes that use terms that I know are not appropriate for beginners, or use several steps in tandem that I know from experience would cause a beginning cook to take hours to execute. Or that would cause confusion.
That's all.

Well, thanks for the PSA on behalf of all beginning cooks out there (of which you are not one). But perhaps they know that there's this handy function on your computer called Google, and you can use it to look up unknown terms. Sometimes it even can be used to access simple instructional videos.

Well, apparently I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. If I am a beginning cook, I'm to be cursed out because I have the audacity not to have learned to cook which is a life skill everyone must have. If I am somewhat competent, well, how dare I speak up on behalf of beginners. What a nice bunch you experienced cooks are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the replies. Actually, I can cook a fairly decent meal. I make a lot of chicken dishes; chili; stir-fries; do a good roast; flank steak; know how to make Thanksgiving dinner and have been doing it for years on my own; can make a simple cake, brownies, etc. I always contribute to potlucks. (Okay, hold the applause.)

The point of my post was more that sometimes I see recipes that use terms that I know are not appropriate for beginners, or use several steps in tandem that I know from experience would cause a beginning cook to take hours to execute. Or that would cause confusion.
That's all.

Well, thanks for the PSA on behalf of all beginning cooks out there (of which you are not one). But perhaps they know that there's this handy function on your computer called Google, and you can use it to look up unknown terms. Sometimes it even can be used to access simple instructional videos.

Well, apparently I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. If I am a beginning cook, I'm to be cursed out because I have the audacity not to have learned to cook which is a life skill everyone must have. If I am somewhat competent, well, how dare I speak up on behalf of beginners. What a nice bunch you experienced cooks are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the replies. Actually, I can cook a fairly decent meal. I make a lot of chicken dishes; chili; stir-fries; do a good roast; flank steak; know how to make Thanksgiving dinner and have been doing it for years on my own; can make a simple cake, brownies, etc. I always contribute to potlucks. (Okay, hold the applause.)

The point of my post was more that sometimes I see recipes that use terms that I know are not appropriate for beginners, or use several steps in tandem that I know from experience would cause a beginning cook to take hours to execute. Or that would cause confusion.
That's all.

Well, thanks for the PSA on behalf of all beginning cooks out there (of which you are not one). But perhaps they know that there's this handy function on your computer called Google, and you can use it to look up unknown terms. Sometimes it even can be used to access simple instructional videos.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the replies. Actually, I can cook a fairly decent meal. I make a lot of chicken dishes; chili; stir-fries; do a good roast; flank steak; know how to make Thanksgiving dinner and have been doing it for years on my own; can make a simple cake, brownies, etc. I always contribute to potlucks. (Okay, hold the applause.)

The point of my post was more that sometimes I see recipes that use terms that I know are not appropriate for beginners, or use several steps in tandem that I know from experience would cause a beginning cook to take hours to execute. Or that would cause confusion.
That's all.