They say it's a long way to the top if you want a sausage roll, and I reckon the same thing applies to most other good food too.
I eat when I get nervous, and it's pretty much the same thing when I cook food - I get nervous.
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Mainly for the people I'm cooking for because it's not always a set and forget masterpiece. LOL.
Often it's more of an edge of your seat exercise, and that's just trying to come up with an idea. Wine helps. Maybe. Discuss.
That's why I admire, aspire and salute the seemingly effortless skills that good cooks exhibit, particularly as we mark this year's Herald Weekender 2020 Food Issue.
That ability to take what's in the fridge, or in season, and throw something together that rises above the mundane to meet the moment and tame the masses is never to be underestimated.
They say it takes thought, love, consideration and practice. I'd add persistence and a bit of Donna Hay to that mix.
Getting better at cooking is often referred to as a figment of my imagination, but you have to have faith.
The road to maturation can only be achieved by what cricketers call "time in the middle". Or in this case, time the kitchen, where runs on the board are measured by the absence of leftovers and polite silence.
Cooking takes preparation and the longer your innings, the more you learn that meat on its own doesn't necessarily cut it as a meal plan. Except, maybe, when Supercars come to town.
There are other things like vegetables, sauces, herbs and spices that can be incorporated into the repertoire. Many meals don't even require the demise of a creature.
It's a lot to consider when you're a creature of habit, and knowing where you're going with cooking is often helped by knowing from where you've come.
I watched a show on ABC recently, Further Back in Time for Dinner, and it gave insights into the food we've eaten in Australia over the decades.
Tellingly, the further back the show went, the more my cooking receptors sparked.
Directions like "apply heat and chew stoically" really resonated. It was a common refrain during the Depression, probably because people were depressed. Possibly about what they were eating.
It reminded me of my own cooking prowess when I left home. Zero skills and one reflex, meat - apply heat and chew stoically. Maybe growl a little. If I could afford meat.
A familiar stage in the dark ages of young adult male culinary development, perhaps.
Illuminated in the main by toasted cheese sandwiches, boiled rice - flavoured with a Cup-A-Soup packet mind you - and a hangover, probably the result of malnutrition.
And with life came experience, relationships and eventually the concession that the "five good food groups" aren't beef, pork, chicken, lamb and noodles.
There was in fact a world of tastes, flavours and textures which could be deconstructed from, say, a kebab, unlocking whole new realms of food combinations you'd be mad to deny yourself.
Now, people with experience tend to know what flavours go with what types of food, side dishes, salads and so forth, because they've spent time in the middle.
People without experience tend to roll the dice because they haven't, leading people with experience to wonder what the hell they were thinking. And it's a fair question.
Important lessons learned over time include the following.
Set the table before you start because if all else fails, at least you might get this right.
Garlic, onion and salt go with just about everything, except dessert.
Fennel, oregano, chili, soy sauce, fish sauce, cumin, coriander, paprika and so on can be added to achieve various types of dishes, but never all at once, unless you're really in a panic.
And never run out of gas at a family barbecue because you'll never live it down.
A recipe certainly helps in relation to making pot luck luckier.
And when you find a good recipe, write it down in a scrappy pad which forever will be referred to as the "Book of Bangers" and will be permanently hard to find thereafter.
In this way you may eventually develop kitchen muscle memories that create "mmmmmm" not "ugggh".
There's no doubt learning to cook is a journey and like any off-road adventure things might get a bit bumpy.
Just so long as they don't get lumpy, you should be right (unless the recipe specifies).
In guitar terms, I know a few basic chords but one day I'd like to rock out like Angus.
They say it's a long way to the top if you want a sausage roll, and I reckon the same thing applies to most other good food too.
So it's hats off to the good cooks of the Hunter, both at home and in the field. In fact, make it three chef's hats, and long may they keep things cooking.
