Reddit mentions: The best cooking, food & wine reference books

> Where do you suggest learning this? What do you think of my idea of hiring a culinary student to give me private lessons?

In nearly 10 years of professional cooking I have never met a culinary student with hands. Unfortunately, I cannot explain it more than having the right attitude, with there "always being room for improvement" and "oh he's asian." My first chef and cooking job told me I had "heritage knife skills." You are on the right track with Shun and simply wanting it. I can post some demo videos eventually, when I sober up and have more in my pantry than onions (I work ~80 a week between two kitchens, I don't eat much at home).

> I don't have any friends who work in the food industry, where would you suggest meeting such a person (similar question as above)? I would buy a whetstone, but I have no idea how to use it properly. Also, most of my knives are from Shun, and I know they have a service where you can send them off to get them sharpened for free. I haven't done this yet (knife set is pretty new). Would you suggest this?

Shun is good people, but I resharpen my knifes everyday for use in a professional kitchen, with volume ranging from cutting three bunches of celery to 100 lbs of onions on top of service--I don't like to play with dull knives. And it is a skill you never really lose, though I wore a hole in my finger the last time I sharpened knives, but I sharpened knives for the entire staff and was fairly drunk at the time--maybe you shouldn't be friends with us, unless you like waking up to a pile of dishes and beer cans in the morning... Once again, I would be willing to sharpening technique on youtube, but I'm certain there are videos of it there, "Japanese knife sharpening."

> I enjoy cooking and I absolutely find it cathartic and meditative. However, I have time constraints. I have a job, hobbies, chores, occasional medical problems that sap my energy, and I have to cook ALL my meals. I feel like I spend too long prepping vegetables as it is now. I realize for some recipes that getting perfect cuts is important, but 90% of the time, I would like to just go faster. Do you have any tips for this?

For me, speed come with knife sharpness and monopolizing a single cut. So if you have to julienne a ton of onions, do not try to do one at a time, cut them in half, clean/peel them all, then focus on the julienne so you are repeating the same motions over and over vs attempting different angles and having to move finished product into a container or off the cutting board.

> One major thing I have going for me is that I have great resources in terms of grocery and kitchen options.

>I'm not sure if you are familiar with the Seattle area, but we have an amazing variety of grocery stores/markets here. There is a farmers market every day, Pike Place market, Amazon Fresh (delivery), multiple organic co-ops, Costco, multiple Asian grocery stores, specialty international food stores, Cost Plus World Market, Whole Foods, upscale grocery stores, regular grocery stores, etc. etc. I can get pretty much any ingredient. The problem with most of the produce is that it might be sprayed with the pesticide that I am allergic to. CSAs only work if the produce comes exclusively from certain farmers that don't use this pesticide. When that stuff is in season, I buy huge quantities directly from the farmer and load up my chest freezer.

This makes me happy, but I was happy anyways since I had a few after work. In terms of recommended reading, I suggest looking into pickling assuming you are not allergic to citrus, even so you can probably still use refined vitamin C. Here are three pickling Amazon links: Balls. Can. Ferment, sorry, couldn't resist the urge.

Something else I borrowed off one of my ECs: On food and cooking, Harold McGee.

Another to add to your library: Food lover's Companion

Food is great in that it is a kinesthetic science, a lot of great cooks are also great "scientists" they just don't know it, they are just doing it by "feel, taste and smell." This is where organization and precision come in--know your objective/hypothesis and continue with experiment procedure from there, speed is a measurement: how long, how fast, etc, etc. "If you don't measure you cannot improve." I feel like recipes are more or less, just successful lab reports.

Since you mentioned vegetarianism I feel like I can discuss my on and off relationship with veganity. I do try to build muscle from time to time and so it is hard for me to ignore the nutrient/protein density of tasty decaying animal flesh. But generally in terms of vegetables and fruit there are few exceptions to them having more benefits apart from them being consumed raw: namely Goitrogens.

So this may lead you, as well as it lead me for a time to a "raw/vegan" diet. I dunno though, I get stuck between it and "Paleo" and sometimes just eating raw meat--I cannot tell if I am just becoming lazier as a cook or if I am making strides my personal health.

Back onto topic of sorts:

> My kitchen is already pretty good. I have a nice gas stove, which I feel makes a big difference. We are planning a remodel to enlarge the kitchen.

Hrmm, I am at odds with enlarging for the sake of "bettering," I feel like you can get away with great results with little space and a little ingenuity, but with great precision. I have a portable induction cook-top, a juicer, a blender and a shitty built-in electric range/stove, just missing a dehydrator, PID temperature controlled water bath, a blow torch, vacuum sealer and I wouldn't be too far from a NY test kitchen--I feel like I could feed a hundred people, no problem without using the electric ranges: it comes down to organization. You are one person, trying to feed yourself and your family at any given time, make prep easier for yourself by doing much of it at once or at least eliminating a step or two, prep for half the week or prep for the next step, for example: celery--strip all of it away from the root, throw it in water and save it for later, this keeps it springy and passively washes it; I was taught a long time ago to not drain root vegetables but rather pull them from a bath of water, in that the dirt sinks and stays at the bottom rather than being agitated and back on the vegetables after straining; then you can come back to cut it in any variety you wish. I've kind of made a habit out of bathing veggies vs spraying/rinsing, of course there are exceptions, things that you will peel anyways, that spot of dirt that needs scrubbed and that we need "RIGHT NOW."

The problem I have with recipes is the objectivity in creating "the dish," most of the time, my creations or "specials" come from leftovers or something that is on the verge of being completely useless. Simplicity is king. At my one restaurant we had some black beans that were starting to smell fruity (which is normal, but no one had a planned use for them), a few onions and peppers, some spices, a quick roast then blend with some lemon juice/vinegar and we had a black bean salsa, which I tried to pair with some fish and roasted tomatoes but everyone just wanted the salsa with chips--whatever, I'm Asian, I don't know.

So rather than filling your refrigerator with a dozen half eaten dishes, fill your refrigerator with an endless possibility of dishes: prepped greens for salads; portioned meats for cooking; pickled items for accoutrements, garnishments or just adding that extra acidity; gutted/peeled veggies or fruit--you picking up what I'm laying down?

From there you can experiment with single servings: a celery leaf salad--balsamic vinegar, pickled radish, mustard greens, olive oil, crushed red, salt, julienned carrots, diced red onion and toss in a soft boiled duck egg if you feel the urge. Professional cooking is just a hodgepodge of "stone soup" that everyone has grown to like and accept, everyone has something to add and or learn from.

Restaurant dishes are designed to sell. Try to keep in mind the overt commercialization and not take the small successes you have in just enjoying a simple salad with some boiled eggs, while not getting sick, for granted. Good health tastes great, don't let anyone tell you hard boiled eggs and some celery sticks isn't a meal--"It is until I eat again!"

Speed is just an increase in efficiency in carrying out the procedure. You'll get it, just know what you want and are doing first, then be deliberate. I'll help out best I can.

> Molecular Gastronomy

It helps to not call it that. It's misleading and doesn't describe what's being done. Most in the industry shy away from that phrase. Modernist cuisine is more accepted these days.

As for modernist chefs, others have mentioned Blumenthal. I'll list a few for you to look into:

• Ferran Adria is the grandfather of the entire movement, and is extremely open with sharing his knowledge with the world. He's done some lectures for the Harvard food and science lecture series. You can find videos on youtube from past years. (From my recommended list for you, I think all but Daniel Humm have done the lecture series at some point.)
  
• Grant Achatz is known for it as well. His creations are definitely a little more out there and conceptual, but utterly stunning to experience. One of the most fun meals I've ever had. If you're ever in Chicago, a meal at Alinea is worth going for if you've got the cash. Do make sure to swing by Aviary (also by Achatz) for drinks and bites, whether you go to Alinea or not. Drinks are each very unique and all good across the board. Don't miss out on the bites. (FWIW Chicago seems to be a city that's open to experimentation, so there's a few other places that do modernist food in town that aren't bad.)
  
• Jose Andres worked under Adria for a bit, but has been doing his own thing in the US. He pays homage to his roots, and does some great tapas. He's got a few locations across the States, so might be worth seeking out. I've only been to The Bazaar in LA/BevHills. Let me know if you want to know more about the food there, since I personally believe there are some things that you must get there, along with some that are good but not as interesting.
  
• Daniel Humm's Eleven Madison Park is also amazing, and worthy alternative to Alinea if NYC is easier. There's definitely differences, but worth seeking out. I haven't been, but I've heard very good things and it's on my list for the next trip to NYC.
  
• Wylie Dufresne of wd~50 is also interesting (NYC but closing soon IIRC due to location issues; may reopen or do other stuff at some point). He uses modernist techniques in an almost invisible way, where something may seem, smell, or taste normal, but it's actually made using something else entirely.
  
  I'm obviously missing a ton of chefs. Due to the history of El Bulli/Adria, there's a lot of modernist cuisine in various places in Spain. The above is by no means comprehensive, but just what I'm remembering off the top of my head as an American.
  
  But on modernist cuisine, the real exceptional chefs are the ones that use them as tools in their trade, instead of doing modernist techniques just for the sake of them. I've had way too many meals where they'd have a component of a dish where they probably thought it'd be cool and hip, but ended up adding absolutely nothing to the dish (Foams are a big problem here).
  
  For modernist cuisine, it really helps to go out to eat and experience it for yourself. Trying to execute without having experienced it is like trying to play Beethoven without any experience hearing it played by others before. This will actually likely be a small price to pay, given the $$$$$ you'll be sinking into equipment. When dining, feel free to ask questions. Waiters at most of these fine dining-ish establishments will know their shit, and will go ask the cooks/chef if they don't know the answer off-hand.
  
  There's also a lot of reading to be done, and you'll end up with just techniques to apply. But with it, you'll be able to do amazing things. For books, The Bible here is Modernist Cuisine, the 50-lb, 6 volume, 2400 page behemoth (at $500, again cheap compared to equipment). You can sometimes find it in libraries if the price tag is an issue. Don't skip to the recipes. Read each one cover to cover (and possibly in order), because learning the science behind everything is more important than following recipes.
  
  You won't find much video, because modernist stuff just isn't food-porn friendly. You tend to not have food sizzling on a hot pan and such. A lot of modernist cuisine is done with extreme restraint and focus, and frequently the results are way more interesting in the mouth than visually.
  
  But really, modernist cuisine is a means to an end. They're using it as a tool to create an experience that likely isn't possible using traditional means. But, the important thing is the experience, and not how it was technically achieved.

Not sure the discipline of paleontology is really geared to answer that question... [EDIT] Most fossils I've tasted are tough, a bit salty and frankly too gritty to be on my foodie shortlist.

There's a few factors that goes into meat flavour and texture:

• Fast twitch vs slow twitch muscles determines how 'red' meat is - that is how much myoglobin it has. Birds that fly a lot have red breast meat when compared to birds that fly only in emergencies. For example, compare the breasts of pigeon (red) and chicken (white). This also works with fish: continuously fast moving fish meat tends to red, meaty flavours (eg tuna) vs most fish that have basically white flesh, but have a red triangle of muscle along the dorsal line like hamachi. Ambush hunters like the crocodile are immobile almost all the time, so their meat is more like chicken breast.
  
• Muscles that are continuously exercised are loaded with connective tissue and are tough. Muscles rarely exercised are tender. Compare shin, shank and shoulder cuts (tough) with fillet steak (tender).
  
• Cooking technique - fast and hot vs slow and cool(er). Tender cuts can be cooked hot and fast (grill, fry) and be excellent as long as the internal temperature stays below the mid 60s (°C) otherwise you are in well-done territory [EDIT] and that is the 'stringy' texture in OPs question. Tough cuts should be cooked for a long time to break connective fibres to gelatine making the meat juicy and soft. For tough cuts, temperature can go up into the 70s without necessarily making the meat dry. Think southern BBQ and sous vide ribs. Tender cuts are typically less flavourful/meaty than tough cuts. Chicken thighs need cooking longer than chicken breast, so getting a perfect roast chicken, with moist breast and tender thighs is hard.
  
• Impact of diet. What the animal eats can influence flavour heavily. Corn-fed and grass-fed cattle taste different, with grass-fed being a stronger, meatier taste. Free-range chickens are gamier than factory birds. Water fowl and crocodile tastes a bit 'fishy'. Pigeon and quail more gamey. Traditionally, pheasants and other birds were left to 'hang' (with guts in) in a cool but not refrigerated environment until the meat 'matures' and the tail feather fall out. This fermentation is the main reason for really gamey taste. Personally, I hate it and feel there are too many 'off' flavours. [EDIT] the really fishy smell of not-quite-fresh fish is TMA, caused by the (I think, bacterial) breakdown of proteins in the fish. I am not referring to this off-flavour when I mean fishy.
  
• Seasonality: Animals in areas with cold winters tend to lay down fat in autumn to help the animal survive to spring. There's a strong preference to eating those animals in autumn when the fat content (and thus flavour) is the highest. Higher fat content allows more cooking techniques to be used, and allows the meat to be cooked hotter while remaining moist and tender. Hunting seasons are mostly in the autumn.
  
  So, with Leaellynasaurus, we essentially have a wild turkey-like animal in a highly seasonal environment, eating plants in a non-aquatic environment. Hunt them near polar winter to maximise their yummy fat.
  
  As non-farmed animal, its major muscle groups on its rear legs got a huge workout - its legs would be best for braising and stewing and would be rich, meaty and a bit gamey. Its shoulders and forelimbs a lot less, and so would be more chicken-breast-like, but smaller in proportion. Some small, fried pieces like the Japaneae karaage might be nice.
  
  [EDIT] On reflection, the tail might produce both the greatest challenge when cooking Leaellynasaurus, but also the greatest opportunity. The tail - one of the largest dinosaur tails relative to body size - is full of connective tissue, making poorly cooked tail as chewy as tough jerky and less palatable. However, cooked 48-72 hours at 75°C sous vide, it would be like the best ox-tail stew - juicy, tender and incredibly rich in flavour. It could take some really strong herbs and spices to really up the richness into the stratosphere.
  
  This is just my best guess as a cook who's read the excellent On Food and Cooking. I'd say, give Leaellynasaura meat a try if you can, although finding a restaurant for such a delicacy is pretty hard these days.

I am in the same position you are in. Love cooking, no formal training, but love the science, theory and art behind it all. I have a few books that I find to be indispensable.

• How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything: Vegetarian by Mark Bittman are two of my favorite recipe books. Loads of pretty simple recipes, lots of suggestions for modifications, and easy to modify yourself. Covers a bit of technique and flavor tips, but mostly recipes.
  
  
• CookWise by Shirley Corriher (the food science guru for Good Eats!) - great book that goes much more into the theory and science behind food and cooking. Lots of detailed info broken up nicely and then provides recipes to highlight the information discussed. Definitely a science book with experiments (recipes) added in to try yourself.
  
  
• Professional Baking and Professional Cooking by Wayne Gissen - Both of these books are written like textbooks for a cooking class. Filled with tons of conversion charts, techniques, processes, and detailed food science info. Has recipes, but definitely packed with tons of useful info.
  
  
• The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters - this is not much on theory and more recipes, but after using many of the recipes in this book and reading between the lines a great deal, this taught me a lot about how great food doesn't require tons of ingredients. Many foods and flavors highlight themselves when used and prepared very simply and this really shifted my perspective from overworking and overpreparing dishes to keeping things simple and letting the food speak for itself.
  
  And mentioned in other threads, Cooking for Geeks is a great book too, On Food and Cooking is WONDERFUL and What Einstein Told His Chef is a great read as well. Modernist Cuisine is REALLY cool but makes me cry when I see the price.

I see some good advice people have already given you.

Here's mine:

1. Read recipes just for the sake of reading them: If you take pleasure in cooking, then reading recipes will be fun as well. Even if you don't make them, it gives you some general knowledge about cooking and different processes. It's a bit like picking up another language by watching movies or listening to music. Every bit helps. I have some cookbooks on my nightstand.
   
   
2. Books and resources I highly recommend:
   
   Buzzfeed's food section - lots of good advice and recipes there, amazing walkthroughs and tutorials, too, for all levels
   
   Epicurious's Quick and Easy Section
   
   Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals Jamie Oliver has a book and series out, showing you how to make an entire meal in 30 minutes. Sure, I think it might take you about an hour instead of 30 minutes, if you're new to cooking, but this series is geared towards simplicity and speed, while not making any compromises when it comes to cooking. The food IS delicious indeed. It's also full of great food hacks, useful even for advanced cooks. Get the book, I recommend it. (He also has another one, Jamie's 15 minute meals, with even simpler ones)
   
   Nigel Slater's Real Food and/or Appetite Two great books which show you how to cook simple, basic things at home, with a great twist. Bonus points: The guy is an amazing writer.
   
   Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything This one is a classic. Get it.
   
   Mark Bittman also has a famous series on youtube for the NYT here Check it out
   
   
   
3. Clean your workspace and prep your meal before you begin cooking. It will save you lots of time and frustration.
   
   
4. Clean as you go along. Nothing is more frustrating than cluttering your kitchen with dirty bowls and utensils until you have no space to move around. You spill something? Wipe it now.
   
   
5. Taste your food as you cook it. Goes without saying that you don't taste things like raw chicken until it's cooked, but taste and adjust seasonings always.
   
   
6. Master the basics first. I'd recommend mastering simple things like cooking eggs, grilled cheese, soups, pasta first. Then move on to more complex things, like doughs, etc.
   
   
7. Don't be afraid of herbs and spices. Read up on what the basic classic combinations are, then go crazy and experiment. You'll get the hang of it soon enough.
   
   
8. Eat what you've made, even if it isn't great, and think about how you can improve it next time. Is the bread too tough? Maybe you've added more flour than needed. Too bland? Add more salt next time, etc.
   
   
9. If you go into baking, be extremely careful with substitutions. Baking is an exact science, unlike cooking (mostly), so it's not very forgiving to swapping ingredients at leisure.
   
   
10. Weigh your ingredients (esp. when baking)
    
    
11. ENJOY and share your food with the people you love
    

tl;dr: Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is the best cookbook to get as a beginner, because we expect international and vegetarian recipes along with the old meat and potatoes standards. More subjective reasoning follows below.

I think one of the most important things when selecting a universal cookbook early on is the quality, yet simplicity of the recipes, and how well things are explained. If you make something, as a beginner, you need to know it is going to turn out good, so when you return to the same cookbook later, you are confident the next recipe will be as high of quality. It is also nice to get compliments from others on your cooking, and a well made cookbook can assure this.

Julia Child's cookbooks are certainly of a very high quality, but French cuisine is not suited for beginners, or even novices, IMO. The Joy of Cooking has an enduring legacy brought from its quality of recipes and consistency, and is great for those mainstay dishes that haven't changed in 100 years (Silver Palate Cookbook, Fannie Farmer Cookbook are others in the Joy of Cooking realm). The problem is, tastes have changed since Joy of Cooking came out. It managed to incorporate the introduction of a few international food crazes into its pages, namely Italian and French. The Chinese it incorporates (eg. Chow Mein, etc) are nothing like what we expect from Chinese food today. Let alone Thai, Indian, Japanese, Mexican, Mediterranean, and so on. We Americans today have a much more different palate (fresh/local, international, vegetarian, etc) than what the Joy of Cooking incorporated, even in its most updated versions.

Therefore, I nominate a new Joy of Cooking, for modern times. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. It hits every one of my barometers for a perfect cookbook. Delicious, easy recipes, of high quality. It is very dense in terms of number of recipes per page (not one recipe, with its photo on the facing page), yet easy to read, because one recipe is accompanied by 3-5+ variations to greatly modify it (eg. rice pilaf recipe, becomes Mexican rice, becomes whole grain pilaf, etc). Everything, from technique, to selecting vegetables/meats/etc., to improvising basics a la Alton Brown is covered. The recipes cover a wide gamut, from vegetarian/vegan, to international cuisines across the globe, to the mainstay standards (with interesting variations to improve/change them). And EVERY single recipe I have made for someone else has garnered wonderful compliments, and has been the best I have made to date.

Okay. Welcome to the wonderful world of chemistry and fire that results in yummy! Hopefully this is going to be a nice, little primer for the absolute essentials for a working kitchen.

The equipment you absolutely must have:

A 10" skillet. Thick-bottomed (the thin ones just warp and get unusable)

An 8" skillet. Sometimes you've gotta cook two things at once.

A quart pot, with lid. A second one is a smart idea, but it can wait.

A spatula.

A wooden spoon.

A liquid measuring cup. I'd get a 2-cup one first, and a 4-cup one later.

Measuring cups. Don't try to get away with measuring liquids with your dry cups. It always ends in tears.

Measuring spoons.

The New Best Recipe. It's like The Joy of Cooking, except more comprehensive, based on the chemical science of food, and half the price. Also, the recipes are frickin' DYNAMITE.

A quality 8" chef's knife. This is a great first knife, and will last you many happy years. I know the 6" one is cheaper. Trust me--you'll be glad for the bigger knife in the long run.

TWO cutting boards of a reasonable size. Mark one as being for raw meat only.

A pair of tongs.

A vegetable peeler

Your basic cooking staples that go into making more or less everything:

Salt.

Pepper

Garlic powder. NOT Garlic salt.

Chili powder

Oil. Olive Oil tastes better, but Canola is more forgiving to learn on.

A cheap-ass bottle of Cabernet. Some of your food's chemical compounds are alcohol-soluble, but not water-soluble. A little cheap booze will liberate them.

Onions

Canned tomatoes. I go with diced. No salt added is a plus.

Flour. All purpose is good.

Sugar

Eggs

Rice

Milk

Boneless/Skinless chicken. Breasts or thighs, your choice.

Chicken stock. The granulated or powdered stuff keeps well and is easier to work with than the cubes.

So, I'll get to a starter recipe in a minute, but before I do, I want to talk about a couple of kitchen axioms before we get there. Follow these guidelines across the board and you'll have an easy time of things.

Read the whole recipe before you start cooking. Always! Every time! Seriously! You'll fuck it up otherwise!

When you're cooking on the stove, if you think you're at the right temperature, decrease the heat. The most basic screw-up is cooking your food at too high a heat.

Never, ever, ever cut raw meat on the same cutting board as anything else. You'll make yourself and others sick.

Do your prep work before you start to actually cook. That means cut your veggies, measure your spices and liquids, and so forth.

Keep your knife razor-sharp. Most kitchen injuries come as a result of dull knives. If it feels like you have to work to cut something, your knife needs to be steeled (don't worry about it for now) or sharpened.

Clean your gear as soon as you're done eating.

The chef's knife NEVER goes in the dishwasher. Dish detergent will screw up your blade.

And now, a recipe to get you started: Parmesan Chicken Risotto.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast, thawed and patted dry with paper towels.

2 Tablespoons of oil

3/4 Cup of rice

1 cup of chicken broth

1/4 cup of cooking wine

1/2 cup of SHREDDED Parmesan. The grated stuff doesn't work quite right.

1 onion, diced fine.

2 teaspoons of garlic powder.

A carrot, peeled and chopped fine.

1 teaspoon of dried thyme. You can skip this if you really have to, but it's better with.

Salt & pepper, to taste.

Step 1: Put a tablespoon of oil in a quart pot and turn your stovetop to medium-high (a 7, at most). When the oil looks kind of shimmery, but isn't smoking, put the chicken breast in. Let it sit and cook for about 6 minutes. Flip it over with a pair of tongs, and give it another 6 minutes. Take it out and set it aside for now.

Step 2: Turn the heat down to medium-low (like, 3 or 4) and take the pot off of the heat. Let the pot cool down some, then add the other tablespoon of rice. Once it's warmed up, add in your onions and garlic powder, and stir to combine well. Once the sizzling sound has died down, put the pot back on your burner and cook for 8 minutes. If the onion starts to brown at all, take it off the heat and let it cool down. You're looking for translucent white onions with no browning at all. (BTW: This is called sweating, and it's a fundamental cooking technique. Learn it and practice it, because it's the key to almost any dish you cook with onions, celery, peppers, garlic, and a wide variety of other vegetables.)

Step 3: Add in the thyme, carrot, and the rice, and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. Scrape up the brown stuff on the bottom of the pan that's leftover from the chicken. It's tasty. Cook the rice for about 3 minutes, stirring very frequently, but not all the time.

Step 4: Add the brother and wine, and stir to make sure that no rice is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Lid the pot, bring to a slow boil over slightly higher heat (4, or 5 at the most), and set a timer for 10 minutes. Stir it three times during the 10 minutes.

Step 5: Put the chicken breast on top of the cooking rice, put the lid back on, and set the timer for 15 minutes. Stir it four times during this period. Move the chicken around as needed.

Step 6: Take the pot off the heat, remove the chicken, and stir the Parmesan into the rice. Take two forks and shred the chicken, then put that into the rice. Let it sit for a couple of minutes for the cheese to melt and everything to come down from scaldingly-hot to pleasantly warm.

Step 7: Eat.

This is going to be the opposite of what you want to hear. But, you asked for it and I respect that. I think that there's no substitute for going about this old school and traditionally. The good news is that you can mostly do this for yourself, by yourself.

If you're disinclined (due to time or for another reason) to enroll in a culinary program get yourself either The Professional Chef or Martha Stewart's Cooking School

I know what you're thinking, "Martha Stewart? What am I? A housewife from Iowa?" Fuck that. I've been fortunate to have met and worked with Martha Stewart she's smart enough to know what she doesn't know and that particular book was actually written by a CIA alum and very closely follows the first year or so that you'd get in a program like that. It starts with knife work and then moves on to stocks and sauces. This particular book has actually been criticized as being too advance for people who have no idea what they're doing so, despite appearances, it may be perfect for you. If you want to feel more pro and go a little deeper, get the CIA text but know that it's more or less the same info and frankly, the pictures in the MSO book are really great. Plus, it looks like Amazon has them used for $6 bucks.

These resources will show you HOW to do what you want and they follow a specific, traditional track for a reason. Each thing that you learn builds on the next. You learn how to use your knife. Then, you practice your knife work while you make stocks. Then, you start to learn sauces in which to use your stocks. Etc. Etc. Etc. Almost like building flavors... It's all part of the discipline and you'll take that attention to detail into the kitchen with you and THAT'S what makes great food.

Then, get either Culinary Artistry or The Flavor Bible (Both by Page and Dornenburg. Also consider Ruhlman's Ratio (a colleague of mine won "Chopped" because she memorized all the dessert ratios in that book) and Segnit's Flavor Thesaurus. These will give you the "where" on building flavors and help you to start to express yourself creatively as you start to get your mechanics and fundamentals down.

Now, I know you want the fancy science stuff so that you can throw around smarty pants things about pH and phase transitions and heat transfer. So...go get Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking THAT is the bible. When the people who run the Ferran Adria class at Harvard have a question, it's not Myhrvold that they call up, it's Harold McGee. While Modernist Cuisine always has a long, exciting complicated solution to a problem I didn't even know I had, when I really want to know what the fuck is going on, I consult McGee and you will too, once you dig in.

Another one to consider which does a great job is the America's Test Kitchen Science of Good Cooking this will give you the fundamental "why's" or what's happening in practical situations and provides useful examples to see it for yourself.

Honestly, if someone came to me and asked if they should get MC or McGee and The Science of Good Cooking and could only pick one and never have the other, I'd recommend the McGee / ATK combo everyday of the week and twice on Tuesdays.

Good luck, dude. Go tear it up!

When I started out, I relied most of the Fannie Farmer cookbook, to be honest, but something like The Joy of Cooking, Bittman's How To Cook Everything or Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food would be good, too. Joy is classic, simple recipes with clear instructions, aimed at beginners. Brown is excellent at explaining the science behind why reciepes work the way they do. Bittman emphasizes showing a technique, then showing lots of simple variations, allowing you to learn a skill and then apply it to different ingredients.

You might also take a look at Rhulman's Ratio --- for a certain sort of personaility, that book can be like a lightbulb going off. It's all about the common principles that underlay many sorts of recipes. Some people find it too abstract, especially if they're just starting (most actual recipes break his rules a little, one way or another), but if you're more of an abstract logical thinker it can be quite helpful.

But cooking in general can be quite diffucult to pick up from books --- techniques that are quite simple to demonstrate can be super difficult to describe. Youtube/the internet can be your friend, here --- Jacques Pepin, America's Test Kitchen, and Good Eats are all good at demonstrating and explaining technique. Check out the Food Wishes youtube channel, too --- Chef John is a former culinary instructor, and he demostrates a lot of classic techniques in the reciepes he does.

At the end of the day though, cooking's like Carnigie Hall. Think of stuff you like to eat, find a recipe for that stuff, and just go for it. If you start off making things you know and like, then it will be easier to tell if you're getting it right as you go along, and that I think is the most crucial and most difficult part of becoming a skilled cook --- being able to tell when something's ready vs. when it needs 5 more minutes, being able to tell if the batter looks right before you cook it, if something needs more seasoning and if so what kind. All that's mostly a karate kid, wax on, wax off thing --- you just got to keep making stuff in order to have the experience to tell when something's right.

What exactly do you mean by 'healthy?'

Is it about calorie reduction or getting more nutrients? Or both?

A very simple, tasty one is roasted cauliflower. Cauliflower really benefits from browning. Preferably roasting. Just wash and dry it (thoroughly), cut into equally sized pieces, whether it be bite size or "steaks," toss in olive oil, salt & pepper (and garlic if you want), spread evenly on a roasting pan, but don't crowd it too much, and roast in the oven on the middle rack or higher at about 425-450F until brown... even nearly black in a few places. It's so simple and delicious.

It makes a great soup too, just blend it with either veg or chicken stock and either some fresh parsley or thyme.

Another veg that does well with char is broccoli. Steam, blanch (heavily salt your blanching or steaming liquid) or microwave (if you must) the cut broccoli stalks until about half done, drain and dry. Toss in olive oil, salt, minced garlic and chili flakes and grill on very high heat or broil until slightly charred. You won't believe how good it is.

Some great books for veg dishes are:

Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi

Tender by Nigel Slater (this one has a great chocolate beet cake)

The Art Of Simple Food II by Alice Waters (So many simple, classic veg preparations in this one.)

--

Regarding Mac & Cheese, here is page from Modernist Cuisine at Home:

http://i.imgur.com/E4dd4lQ.jpg

It involves using Sodium Citrate. Calm down! Don't be afraid. It's a type of salt derived from citrus fruits. If you like to cook with cheese this stuff will be your best friend. The only issue is you don't need very much of it, so you will need an accurate scale that can handle very small weights, but they're not that expensive and it'll pay for itself quickly in the amount you'll likely save in cheese costs, because.....

What it does is it helps emulsify the fats and solids of cheese when it melts and it can be used with just about every type of cheese that can melt, so that means you can use it to emulsify multiple types of cheeses at the same time. Why this matters for you? If you're trying to reduce calories you can mix your favorite cheeses with some lower calorie cheeses (like drained cottage cheese) and still end up with a really creamy sauce without having to add cream or butter. This stuff doesn't make Pasta & Cheese "healthy" but it does help you reduce the caloric value of a cheese dish without sacrificing texture... in fact it improves it.

Check it out: http://youtu.be/gOLgLi5ZJOY

My everyday cookbook is How to Cook Everything Fast by Mark Bittman. I recommend it for anyone who's past the boiling water phase and is competent at reading recipes, but who wants to learn to put things together on their own - the stage I was at when I got it. I could prattle on about this book, but the most important things to me as a novice cook are:

1. It emphasizes flow in the kitchen. Many recipes assume you already have everything diced, peeled, cleaned, etc. This book assumes you just came home from the grocery store. It lists everything you have to do in an order that makes sense, like reminding you to preheat your oven or get your oil hot before you start vegetable prep.
   
2. It encourages substitution. Most of the recipes have several variations and there are a few "recipe-free" recipes, telling you how to put together a basic soup, braise meat, or cook a pilaf with whatever you have on hand.
   
3. True to name, it's quick. Cooking a 3 hour recipe is great for special occasions, but not every night. Most of the recipes take about 30 minutes - add sides (which it will recommend for you, by the way) and cleanup, and you're looking at 45 minutes to put a full dinner on the table. You get more cooking experience in this way too.
   
4. A few different cuisine styles are emphasized, so you'll learn which spices, meats, veggies, etc. play nicely with each other. Even so, even the most poorly equipped supermarket will get you through 90% of the recipes. Similarly, the only special equipment he calls for is a food processor. No waffle iron, ice cream machine, or sous vide recipes here.
   
   By the way, it's crazy cheap on Kindle right now. I'm not a huge fan of the e-book layout - I vastly prefer my paper book - but if you wanted to check it out for $3, now's the time.
   
   I'd recommend anything by Bittman. There are a lot of New York Times articles you can read by him for free, too. He takes a very laid-back, intuitive approach to cooking that encourages experimentation, and I love that!
   
   Another favorite that used to be on my shelf but I lost in a move: Kitchen Quick Tips from Cook's Illustrated. I recommend just about anything from the America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated family. It's not a cookbook, but it's full of little tips on all sorts of kitchen things - the most efficient way to dice an onion, peel a potato, remove a stuck wine cork, etc. It's the sort of stuff you'd see on /r/Lifehacks but all collected into one place.

I usually only use cookbooks that are also textbooks for culinary art students. The CIA has a textbook that is phenomenal. I used to own a textbook from the western culinary institute in Portland, which is now a cordon bleu school and I dont know what they use. Those books will teach you the basics of fine cooking. Ratio is also a great book because it gives you the tools to create your own recipes using what real culinary professionals use: ratios of basic ingredients to create the desired dish.

But the creme de la creme of culinary arts books is this crazy encyclopedia of ingredients called On food and cooking: the science and lore of the kitchen. It is invaluable. It should not be the first book you buy (if youre a newbie) but it should be your most well thumbed.

For a sauce pan what you want is something with straight sides. Sautee pans have are a good substitute, but often have bases that have too wide a diameter for perfect sauces. Fine saucepots are made of copper for even heat transfer. Stainless steel is also a good substitute. What you have there is something of a hybrid between a skillet and a saucepot. Its more like a chicken fryer or something. At the restaurant we use stainless steel skillets for absolutely everything to order: sauces, fried oysters, what have you. But when you get down to the finest you need to fine a real saucepot: 2-3 qts will do, straight sides, made of copper. teach a man to fish

I dont really know how to teach you the varied tricks and such. It is something that I pick up by listening to the varied cooks and chefs I work with. What I would advise you is to watch cooking shows and read recipes and pay a lot of attention to what they are doing. Half of the things I know I dont know why I do them, just that they produce superior results. Or, consequently I would have a hot pan thrown at me if I did not do them. And I mean these are just ridiculous nuances of cooking. I was reading The Art of French Cooking and learned that you should not mix your egg yolks and sugar too early when making creme brulee because it will produce and inferior cooking and look like it has become curdled. That is a drop in the bucket to perfect creme brulee making, but it is part of the process.

I wish I could be more help, but the best advice I could give you to become the cook you want to be is go to school. Or barring that (it is a ridiculous expense) get a job cooking. Neither of those things are very efficient, but it is the best way to learn those little things.

A good book to get is Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen
http://amzn.com/1584796960 (I'll fix the link when I get home). It breaks down your must haves, the nice to haves and the kitchen luxury items in almost all categories.

With that said, I had good success with my Paderno pots and pans. They go on sale a few times a year and you can get awesome deals on them. Mine was a $1000 set and I got it for $300.

I love my Shun knives. I know you said you have knives already, but they make some nice sushi knives in a few of their lineups.

A carbon steel wok is also a great thing to have. If you season it properly, it will be an amazing asset in the kitchen for all kinds of cooking.

Not mentioned yet, but a good pepper mill is a pretty valuable tool as well, especially if you're seasoning a lot of meats. Something with a crank that is sturdy enough to quickly grind up a bunch of fresh pepper for a recipe is pretty awesome to have.

As someone with too many cookbooks for her own good, here are some of my favorites.

I am not a vegetarian, but Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is the book that made me love vegetables. She doesn't approach vegetarian cooking in the way lots of people do, where you just substitute or omit meat from a dish, but creates recipes that center around and bring out the best from vegetables.

Gourmet Today is a huge book culled from the now-defunct Gourmet magazine. It's a good all-around resource with (as the title implies) a modern American bent to its recipes.

Steven Raichlen's How to Grill transformed me from a charcoal-shy indoors-only kind of cook into an aspiring grillmaster last summer. He lays the basics out in a very straightforward manner with lots of pictures and excellent recipes. It includes the basics of smoking as well.

I like reading cookbooks that blend recipes with a broader scope of information related to them, so I enjoy anything by Jennifer McLagan (I started with Odd Bits). She writes about ingredients that are less typical or even looked down upon, making the case that these are overlooked culinary treasures. Her chapter introductions include tidbits like history, cultural impact, and science behind the ingredients. The recipes are great but tend to be highly-involved.

For specific cuisines, a couple of my favorites are Bill Neal's Southern Cooking (the recipe for Shrimp & Grits is mind-blowingly good), The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, and Madame Wong's Long-Life Chinese Cookbook.

TL;DR: the first three are what I'd consider must-haves, the remainder are interesting and might broaden your culinary horizons.

That's great to hear. Scale instead of volume is 100% the way to go. If you are interested in picking up a stand mixer, the Kitchenaid is the obvious choice, and for good reason. I would go with the professional 5 model, and I would shop around on amazon, including with the color. I got this one because it was the cheapest one based on color. The professional series has a stronger motor and can handle a tough load (like dough) much better than the artisan mixer. If you do want to buy it and color doesn't matter to you, definitely click through the different colors because the color alone can affect the price, something to the tune of several hundred dollars in variance, which is crazy to me (for instance, right now, the difference between the cheapest and most expensive based solely on color is $160).

As an aside, I have a brother who is on the high functioning autism scale, so I have some experience dealing with some of the unique inherent challenges. If you ever want to shoot me a PM to take advantage of my experience working in high end kitchens, or just a general message, PLEASE feel free to do so. I already help a few people with cooking problems and love doing so. I would be more than happy to help you however I can.

Good luck to you and your son on his journey towards learning how to bake and cook(hopefully).

p.s. If your son loves the technical aspect of it, I would highly recommend the cooking issues podcast. While they don't discuss baking so much, the host was the technical director for the French Culinary Institute in New York for many years, so he has a very analytical approach to food, cooking, and cocktails (he owns a very well renowed bar). It's a great podcast/radio show, and I listen to it all the time. As far as other very technical resources go, I would very very very highly recommend Harold McGee's book, On Food and Cooking. It is a seminal work that deals with the how and why of everything to do with food. It is easily in the top 5 most important books on cooking and food written in the 20th century.

An alarm clock to get her used to waking up at 2am? ;-)
I'm not a professional baker, but did work as one for several months 20 years ago. Enough to let me know that although I enjoyed baking, I didn't enjoy doing it as a profession. So these suggestions are from a home baker, not a pro.
I would suggest a cookbook or subscription to Cook's Illustrated or America's Test Kitchen.
I bought The New Best Recipe Cookbook ten years ago for myself and have gifted a copy to several friends since. It goes through not only a recipe, but what changing different ingredients will do to the final product. The chocolate chip cookie recipe was quite informative with illustrations showing not only what different sugars would do, but different fats, flours, and the effect of chilling the dough had on the final product.
There is also Baking Illustrated which is just about baking. It's probably going to be hard to find, but if you stumble across it, it's worth it. Some folks complain that it's just the baking chapters from the best recipe cookbook with a few extra recipes, but if your kid is really focused on baking, this may be a better fit for now and then the best recipe cookbook later when she feels like branching out into thing to go with the baked goods.
I do not own the Cooks Illustrated Baking Book but I have several of their other cookbooks and friends who have this one think highly of it. It's been described as a combination recipe book and class in baking. Like the New Best Recipe Cookbook, it includes not just recipes, but paragraphs about what is going on in the recipe and what changes to the recipe will do.
You may also want to look at getting a large vermin resistant container to store flour. I use a Vittles Vault pet food container to store my flour. It allows me to buy 25 lbs of flour for $8 instead of 5 lbs for $4 and not run out in the middle of a baking session.

To save money on food you need to:

• Plan your meals in advance, perhaps a week at a time but at least a few days in advance. This not only avoids impulse buys but also allows you to make the most of the food you have bought for example - day 1 roast chicken for dinner (maybe to share with a date?), day 2 chicken sandwiches for lunch, chicken pot pie for dinner, day 3 chicken soup for lunch, chicken risotto for dinner, day 4 left over chicken soup for lunch. A whole chicken used properly is so much cheaper than chicken breasts. Take at look at The Kitchen Revolution, this is the website for a book which very elegantly deals with weekly food planning.
  
  
• Eat seasonally - fresh tomatoes are ridiculous cheap in the summer, silly in the winter. You can usually tell what is in season because it is cheap!
  
  
• Eat mostly vegetarian, using meat as a flavour enhancer rather than the main item on the plate. In my chicken dinner example, although the chicken would be the main item for the first couple of meals, by the time you are getting your last few meals out of it, you will be adding a small portion of meat to enhance your risotto or soup. Other wise beans are the thing. See Mark Bittman's excellent How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for really simple yet delicious guide to well almost everything you could want to eat (except meat), it has a particularly good chapter on legumes including lentils. He has a very relaxed style of writing which I think is very easy to follow.
  
  Good luck!

Bittman's How to Cook Everything Fast is my new bible: http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Fast-Better/dp/0470936304

Serious Eats mentioned elsewhere here is also reliably great, especially The Food Lab. But I don't have the patience to cook a lot of the recipes. If you're like me, ditto the advice to cook big for a week. I'd add in crockpot recipes too.

Random other things that have helped me:

• Get prewashed and pre-sliced veggies and other things so you can skip a step or two
  
• Learn what can be prepped and saved ahead of time (like single serving rice in the freezer - and I say this as someone who is Asian and has a $300 rice cooker)
  
• Go all out on a collection of sauces and spices. They can make it easy to cook (sometimes just slather a sauce all over a piece of meat and cook it kind of easy) or they can make it easy to enhance a food without sacrificing healthiness. Also drastically lets me cut down on salt, which isn't great for you in excess. (Unfortunately I find it hard to go out and eat because so much is oversalted to my taste...)
  
• Keep some basics at hand all the time. My husband really likes to have sandwich fixings around for when it's 2pm and he forgot to eat lunch. My idea of basics is things like curry paste and coconut milk and bamboo shoots + leftover meat for a quick curry (and rice from the freezer ;) ) Bittman can help you with this at the beginning of the book I linked (and I think he also has a "cooking for beginners" type book as well in the How to Cook... series)
  
• Keep things simple and expand on the basics. One of my favorite meals is a cheese or chicken/bacon/leftover meat quesadilla, and a small side salad. Takes 5 minutes tops to assemble. I used the same technique to use leftover shredded pork Chinese delivery for moo shu pork with my own hoisin (remember the sauces?) and the fresh tortillas I had in my fridge. Then a breakfast burrito in the morning!
  
• Soup is a great way to get rid of leftovers.
  
• Smoothies are a great way to eat veggies. Blend in some spinach+kale with "strong" flavored fruits like frozen berries, mmmm! Don't forget to toss in some nut butter too :)
  
• In case you forget to eat altogether - my "secret" is Ensure. On-the-go drinks are super convenient and at least stop me from snacking endlessly until the next meal.

Until about a year ago, I knew next to nothing about cooking but I've been learning. I wish I had known this stuff in college. What I did is I bought a copy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and went through it. The regular How to Cook Everything is also good. Both of them give you lots of really easy recipes (like how to make scrambled eggs) as well as more advanced ones if you want to serve dinner to people for example.

Also, I watched every episode of Good Eats and learned a lot from that. Most if not all of those are on YouTube. Just start with Season 1 Episode 1 and start plowing through them.

I don't prepare meat because I'm paranoid about germs, but don't let that stop you. The things I've been preparing the most are:

• Eggs: fried, scrambled, omelettes. Hands down the easiest thing.
  
  
• Sauteed, braised, boiled, or steamed vegetables. These are all very easy and once you've done it a bit you start to understand what the best method is for different vegetables and you don't even need to look in a recipe book. Most recent thing I did is sauteed plantains.
  
  
• Rice dishes. Pilaf and rice with beans/peas/other legumes are easy and nutritious.
  
  
• Soups. Things like potato leek soup, french onion soup, split pea soup, lentil soup are all very easy.
  
  
• Simple baked desserts like muffins, banana bread, apple cobber etc.
  
  If you have an oven, it's really not very hard to make your own pizza, for that matter.

Sry...don't find a lot of time to post. And as far as finding ur post... I went looking for it. I cook a lot of proteins and I wanted to see what reddit had to say about chicken breast. It can be very unforgiving, but when done correctly it is an amazing meat. NOW, to address you concerns about nutrition. Yes, brining does increase the sodium level a bit, but lets face it, chicken needs a little help and when you brine its just les salt you will need to add when you season. If you have high blood pressure you may want to watch you sodium intake. Here is a site that attemps to tackel the "how much sodium does a brine add?" Question ( http://www.salon.com/2010/03/23/brining_meats_sodium_add_calculation/) . As far as brining subtracting any nutritional value; I would say, no, it does not measurably reduce nutrition. In my opinion overall; brining a chicken breast as part of my meal is far more delicious and healthy than ordering fast food (and less sodium). If creating a chicken breast meal that makes you want to continue cooking keeps you from ordering take out its a win. As far as my experience... I am just a home cook that grew up in a home that didnt know how to cook. At some point a the family of one of my friends started inviting me to dine with them at some very expensive restaurants. IT BLEW MY MIND!... I had no idea food could be that good. From that point on I made my mission to give food the respect it deserves. I read took the scientific approach, ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684800012/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/189-1398983-1145564) read the cooking bible over and over and watch guys like alton brown ( http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KKr1rByVVCI).

I'm glad to hear you enjoy adobo! The first time I ever made it was also the first time my boyfriend ever tried adobo. Luckily, everything went better than expected - the adobo turned out great, and it is now one of his favorite foods.

Chicken Adobo

From How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

Makes: 4 servings
Time: About 1 ¼ hours

This Philippine classic has been called the best chicken dish in the world by a number of my friends and readers. It is cooked in liquid first, then roasted, grilled, or broiled. Here, however, the initial poaching liquid is reduced to make a sauce to pass at the table for both the chicken and white rice, the natural accompaniment.

The coconut milk isn’t mandatory, though it does enrich the sauce considerably.

Other protein you can use: pork chops (bone-in or boneless).

• 1 cup soy sauce
  
• ½ cup white or rice vinegar
  
• 1 cup water (this was not listed in the ingredient list in the book, but it is mentioned as an ingredient in the recipe)
  
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
  
• 2 bay leaves
  
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  
• 1 ½ cups coconut milk (optional)
  
• 1 whole chicken, 3 to 4 pounds, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 8 pieces, or any combination of parts
  
  Combine the soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, bay leaves, pepper, 1 cup water, and half the coconut milk, if you’re using it, in a covered skillet or saucepan large enough to hold the chicken in one layer. Bring to a boil over high heat. Add the chicken; reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, turning once or twice, until the chicken is almost done, about 20 minutes. (At this point, you may refrigerate the chicken in the liquid for up to a day before proceeding; skim the fat before reheating.)
  
  Heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit or heat a charcoal or gas grill or the broiler to moderate heat and put the rack about 4 inches from the heat source. Remove the chicken pieces from the liquid and dry them gently with paper towels. Boil the sauce, along with the remaining coconut milk if you’re using it, over high-heat until it is reduced to about 1 cup; discard the bay leaves and keep the sauce warm. Meanwhile, grill, broil, or roast the chicken until brown and crisp and hot, turning as necessary, 10 to 15 minutes total (roasting will take a little longer). Serve the chicken with the sauce.
  
  -----
  
  I have never used coconut milk when making adobo. My Mom and Grandparents never used it, so I just went along with that school of thought. It sounds like it would be an interesting addition though! I have used bone-in and boneless chicken, as well as bone-in and boneless pork for this recipe and have never been unhappy with the results.
  
  I have followed this recipe step by step, including finishing it on the grill, and it turned out great. However, when my Mom or Grandparents made adobo, they would just keep the protein simmering in the liquid and I enjoy it that way too. I have also used this recipe as a reference for proportions, browned the protein, and put everything in a crock pot on low for a few hours. Depending on what types of flavors you like, you can also add onions, peppercorns, whole garlic cloves, extra bay leaves…I’m just naming things that I would find in my adobo when I was growing up. Haha.

Sure, no problem! Here are some of my favorite resources.

The web site SeriousEats.com has a lot of good posts. Specifically, I like this guy's work. He puts in the research to really refine techniques. Some of this is cooking is "elaborate," but not overly so:
http://www.seriouseats.com/user/profile/Goodeaterkenji

And, he has a really good cook book:
http://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab

https://www.chefsteps.com/ is amazing. You want elaborate? This is the place. there's even a term for it: modernist cuisine. These guys have a lot of free content, but there's also a premium membership (one time purchase) which gets you access to a vast amount of videos, with more being made all the time.

Here is a related cookbook, which is stellar:
http://modernistcuisine.com/books/modernist-cuisine-at-home/

The above book is the "at home" version. This is the FULL version, including recipes that require lab equipment like centrifuges! You want elaborate? This is the pinnacle of elaborate cooking. Yes, it is like $500!
https://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-Art-Science-Cooking/dp/0982761007

Into BBQ or grilling? Meathead's your man and his site is full of no-BS guides. He also has a cookbook but just the site will keep you busy for a long time:
http://amazingribs.com/

If you want to get started in fancier cooking I strongly recommend getting a sous vide apparatus, such as this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Sansaire-Sous-Immersion-Circulator-Black/dp/B00KSFAB74

Sous vide is an entirely new (to you!) way to cook and you can do things with it that are not possible in other ways. All of the "modernist" cooking guides out there use it heavily. There are many options for the hardware at all price points... Anova gear sometimes goes on sale for $100-150.

Here's a specific easy modernist recipe you can try. It benefits from, but does not require, a sous vide machine... they tell you how to make do without one. If you think this looks fun, ChefSteps will be your new addiction.

https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-salmon--2

Lot of comments on smoking, which would be an incredibly positive accomplishment on its own. I wanted to comment on the eating out. Other than my wife, my greatest love is cooking. I'm a cheap bastard, and my love of cooking is the best thing for that. It may not be for you, but cooking can be a really amazing hobby that also saves you money and provides you with a sense of accomplishment.

I will always recommend Alton Brown to people learning to cook. It's a great way to save money (my wife and I eat great and spend only $300 on food a month) as well as a hobby that has quick, positive results.

This is how I did it a few years ago.

Read alton brown's book, I'm just here for the food

http://www.amazon.com/Im-Just-Here-Food-Cooking/dp/1584790830

Which will teach you the basics and what you're trying to accomplish by using different cooking methods. It greatly increased my confidence in the kitchen. Also check out his good eats series.

Also I think a decent meat thermometer
Is a great purchase as it takes the guess work out of when meat is done cooking, is supremely useful for beginners, and something you'll be able to use forever.


http://www.thermoworks.com/products/thermapen/

The thermapen is the one I got but expensive but worth it.

Subscribe to a bunch of cooking subreddits.

And I'm gonna suggest something different now instead of buying a set list of things you need to cook anything.

Instead, I suggest finding something you really enjoy eating like something you're an expert on eating at restaurants, I chose burgers, you can do pizza, or spaghetti, hot wings whatever. Then go on seriouseats.com and find the appropriate recipe. Idea is to choose something you have an idea of how it's supposed to taste and like enough to cook a few different versions of. Then you buy the few things you need to cook that thing. A cast iron pot, a metal spatula whatever. And you learn how to do things/buy equipment as needed for various recipes related to it. For example you may learn how to sautée and Carmelize onions for a burger recipe.

Cook with someone else, it's way more fun, is a great date idea, doesn't matter if it's the blind leading the blind or someone that you can learn a lot from. It'll make you more comfortable in the kitchen.

Finally, you'll have to pay your dues for a little bit, I used to hate cooking, everything takes way longer then it should, you make a big mess, things don't work out like you planned, but pretty soon you make things that turn out great every once in a while. You still mess up occasionally, but you'll start learning why things don't turn out well and you'll start being able to save things if you make a mistake. Now that I'm pretty good at it I sort of enjoy it.

Whether it is actually better or not, that's highly debatable and according to taste. But the cuisine in London/ UK is not neglectable and has a very rich background.

One of the most influential chefs in the world such as Heston Blumenthal (which is largely inspired by Harold McGee, an American), Marco Pierre White (he partly wrote modern cuisine, also an awesome person to hear) and Michel Roux (both senior as junior) have worked their careers in the UK. Each of them have defined a part of cooking/ cuisine in their way.

Not to forget the Commonwealth as well indeed, which brought a lot to the UK.

Really been watching too much MasterChef UK/ Australia and to one of my cooking teachers who really loves to read about history/ science of food. Then again, it's awesome to hear and to know as food is a way of sharing love, express your creativity and bonds and is such an important aspect of our lives/ society/ culture.

Some books which are awesome and I also have in my collection are:

• The Fat Duck Cookbook (don't imagine creating a dish of it, it's more about the insight and the science behind the dishes as they are easily a couple of pages)
  
• On food and cooking
  
• The Devil in the Kitchen
  
• Kitchen Confidential
  
  Honestly, couldn't forget the latter of course.

Just a couple of links to help you out.
The stonesoup has great (mostly) 5 ingredient recipes and can be easily made vegetarian.
I highly recommend How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and Appetite for Reduction for simple, basic recipes.
Also, quesadillas are a great, quick meal on a stove. If you're looking for a good vegan recipe, these Smoky White Bean Quesadillas are awesome and can be made easily without a food processor.
And this Easy Breezy Cheezy Sauce (scroll down) is delicious, cheap and easy with pasta or steamed veggies. I had a kitchen this size when I studied abroad in France a couple years ago and it can be done. You just have to learn to be creative. :) Good luck!

Here's one that I got from Alton Brown.

You'll need a good steak. Costco sells good ones, but you have to throw a party to eat them all. I've also had success with higher-end grocery stores.

You'll also need a cast-iron pan. Iron holds more heat than aluminum or stainless, and is a bit more affordable than copper.

A good ventilation hood is nice too, because this recipe makes lots of burning-protein smoke.

Set the meat on your countertop for 20 minutes. This allows it to come to the right temperature - if it's too cold, the insides will cook less; too warm and it'll cook too much. Obviously this is a variable you can adjust to how you like your steak; I like mine rarer than most.

Put your pan on the stove and set it to high before you do the rest. You want that pan HOT.

Next, rub a small amount of olive oil on each side of the steaks, a couple of drops for each side. This acts as a heat conductor, like thermal paste on your CPU heatsink. Sprinkle a pinch of salt (kosher if you have it) on each side, and massage it in. Let the steaks sit for 5 minutes.

Now you're ready to cook. Pick up the steaks with tongs, and gently lay them down in the pan, and leave them absolutely alone for 2 minutes. If you slide the steak around, you'll ruin the nice crust that forms on the outside. At this point you'll want to turn on your hood. When the 2 minutes is up, flip the steaks (again, with tongs - good steak shouldn't have a fork stuck in it until it's on the table), and leave them alone for 3 minutes.

Remove the steaks from the pan, and set them on a plate. Cover it with aluminum foil or a big mixing bowl, and let them sit for 5 minutes. The steak is actually still cooking on the inside, and this lets some of the juices soak back to the outside surface. Serve and enjoy - they shouldn't need any A-1.

My favorite cookbook is The New Best Recipe, a compilation of over 1,000 recipes from America's Test Kitchen. I love it because they give in-depth descriptions of all the different things they tried in order to perfect every recipe, and so not only do you get a great recipe but you can learn all about why it is great. Most recipes have one or two additional variations included. They cover different products and techniques, and all sorts of information that is useful for both new and competent cooks. It is so interesting that I sometimes read it just for fun.

The chapters cover everything from appetizers to different types of main courses, but also includes lots of chapters on baked goods -- breads, cookies, cakes, pies, crisps, puddings, and more. I would highly recommend it to anyone, and everything I've made from it so far has been delicious!

You might want to buy Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. Its a book about cooking techniques that I think is precisely the book you are looking for.

Also honorable mention for The Food Lab and The New Best Recipe books as well, those are more recipe based, but they have great info on techniques and ingredients. Both get into the science behind cooking and explain why they picked a specific recipe which helped me learn how to cook without recipes and be able to know when certain things are done(I now judge if something I am baking is done more by smell than time now) and how to save emulsions when to add salt and acids etc. The author of the food lab is also pretty active on the Serious Eats subreddit and will answer questions about his recipes.

Salt Fat Acid and Heat is also pretty good as well, I have not read this one personally though as the first part is waaaaaayyy too much personal narrative from the author for me and I turned off the audiobook after listening to her life story for 10 minutes, so get the print book so you can skip right to the cooking parts.

Welcome to the tribe of grillers and smokers!

Looks like the coals are still active, but you may just not have had enough for the conditions. Since you're cooking outside, you need to be aware of environmental factors, especially wind, ambient temperature, and humidity.

I would suggest switching to natural hardwood charcoal. It burns longer and cleaner than briquets. Ditch any liquid fuels you might be using, they aren't necessary and can make your food taste like petrol. If you haven't already, learn how start your charcoal with tinder. Charcoal chimneys are very helpful. (edit: looks like you already got this covered!)

I also can't recommend enough these books by Steven Raichlen, host of the PBS shows Barbecue University and Primal Grill. He has studied grilling and smoking methods from all over the world, and is very good at explaining techniques and concepts to people of all skill levels.

• The Barbecue! Bible
  
• How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques
  
  Finally, here are some subreddits with very helpful and friendly communities:
  
  
• /r/grilling
  
• /r/smoking
  
• /r/BBQ
  
  Hope this helps!

I love cookbooks, and have probably fifty in my collection.

The ones I keep going back to are:

• Anything by Yotam Ottolenghi - He's an Israeli-born chef in London, and his recipes are a great combination of creative, relatively easy, and unique. He has a knack for combining unusual flavors, and I've never disliked anything I've cooked from him. If you're relatively green, don't get Nopi (too advanced). His other three or four books are all great.
  
  
• Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless. Bayless has a PBS show and owns several restaurants in Chicago. He's a great chef and his recipes are accessible and fun.
  
  
• The Food Lab by u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt. I was skeptical at first, since Lopez-Alt's website is so comprehensive, but the book is absolutely beautiful and contains both recipes and explanations of technique and science.
  
  
• Modernist Cooking at Home - It's expensive and many of the recipes are challenging and/or require special equipment, but the book is truly groundbreaking and never fails to stoke my creativity. It's the home version of his 6-volume tome which many think is one of the most innovative cookbooks in the last 20 years.

I am a professional chef and while watching people prepare food is entertaining and sometimes also educating I actually recommend you to buy books and learn the basics first.

You can then use youtube pretty well in order to watch how to do specific things, like i.e. deboning a whole chicken for a gallantine, or how to trim certain pieces of meat.

Start with french cuisine. Once you have understood how things are connected you'll actually understand everything else.

If you want something simple and entertaining for the start I'd choose Anthony Bourdaine's Les Halles Cookbook. It's amusingly written and the recipes are fairly easy and they are all legit.

Then there is Paul Bocus. Living legend with three long-term girlfriends.

And of course you want to have Escoffier at your home. Doesn't get much more classic than that.

If you want to get a sense of what drives a top notch chef, watch In Search of Perfection by Heston Blumethal. Very very good stuff.

And finally, if you want to learn something about culinary history I highly highly recommend Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany and to learn about our lifes as a chef you need to read the (admittedly exaggerated) autobiographicly Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain.

All this provided, you won't learn cooking without actually doing it.

Edit: Depending on your budget, I also heavily recommend Alain Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine.

My pleasure! Photography is expensive, but cooking is a hobby that's easy to get into in measures. I would recommend How to Cook Everything by Bittman as an excellent, excellent first (or even only) book. Check it out next time you're in a bookstore with a decent cooking section - FYI, the newer red cover is updated and (generally) better than the older yellow cover. It's the sort of book you can spend a little time on a Saturday perusing, make a trip to the grocery store, come home, and try something new. And then leave on your shelf for a few more weeks. But if you keep doing that long enough, you'll get pretty decent at cooking. =)

>The next best thing to having Mark Bittman in the kitchen with you

Mark Bittman's highly acclaimed, bestselling book How to Cook Everything is an indispensable guide for any modern cook. With How to Cook Everything The Basics he reveals how truly easy it is to learn fundamental techniques and recipes. From dicing vegetables and roasting meat, to cooking building-block meals that include salads, soups, poultry, meats, fish, sides, and desserts, Bittman explains what every home cook, particularly novices, should know.

1,000 beautiful and instructive photographs throughout the book reveal key preparation details that make every dish inviting and accessible. With clear and straightforward directions, Bittman's practical tips and variation ideas, and visual cues that accompany each of the 185 recipes, cooking with How to Cook Everything The Basics is like having Bittman in the kitchen with you.

This is the essential teaching cookbook, with 1,000 photos illustrating every technique and recipe; the result is a comprehensive reference that’s both visually stunning and utterly practical.
Special Basics features scattered throughout simplify broad subjects with sections like “Think of Vegetables in Groups,” “How to Cook Any Grain,” and “5 Rules for Buying and Storing Seafood.”
600 demonstration photos each build on a step from the recipe to teach a core lesson, like “Cracking an Egg,” “Using Pasta Water,” “Recognizing Doneness,” and “Crimping the Pie Shut.”
Detailed notes appear in blue type near selected images. Here Mark highlights what to look for during a particular step and offers handy advice and other helpful asides.
Tips and variations let cooks hone their skills and be creative.


http://www.amazon.com/Cook-Everything-Completely-Revised-Anniversary/dp/0764578650/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411914327&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+cook+everything

I was vegetarian for almost 8 years. This was very upsetting to my carnivorous hunting family. They saw it as an act of rebellion and the "big" city I moved to changing me. The reality for me was: factory farmed meat disgusted me, both on the ethical and quality levels. I quit all meat and dedicated myself to an extremely balanced and healthy eating lifestyle.

If you are willing to cook for yourself and try new things, you should never have to worry about your food choices as a vegetarian. "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman is a fantastic and EXTREMELY thorough cookbook that walks you through the A-Z of vegetarian/vegan eating without being too complex or condescending. Especially if you locally source your tofo and produce, you can take care of yourself quite well without meat. Another great book (ignore the stupid hype-y praise on the outer covers, it does actually have a lot of good info) is "Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrmen, it breaks down a lot of what is in basic foods and underscores the protein/fiber richness a lot of common veggies have.

With all that said, especially after my chickens started laying eggs, I realized I wanted meat in my diet. So, I turned to my family members that still hunt and get fresh/pristinely-sourced/humane meat and split the cost of a pig that lived a happy life from time to time.

I think what is vastly more important than what people end up eating is how they eat it and how mindful they are. Up until the 1950s, it was common to have backyard chickens for eggs and/or meat as well as shared access to a cow or backyard goats for milk. I am grateful to live in a city where this is becoming common again.

Best of luck with eating. :-)

One of the best things you can do is to train your palate. This way, when you taste something, you can figure out what's in it, and make it yourself if you want. It will also help you to learn what goes with what. For example, dill goes with salmon, lemon with raspberries, tomato with onion and cilantro or basil, etc. That kind of knowledge will help you to invent your own recipes which are catered directly to your tastes.

If you really want to know what makes food do what it does, I would recommend the following books:

• For general culinary science, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee. It is one of the best books ever written which actually explains why things happen in the kitchen.
  
• I usually buy a copy of Shirley O. Corriher's CookWise for anyone who says they want to learn to cook. It is perfect for beginners and has lots of very useful recipes. If you watch Alton Brown's "Good Eats", you will see Ms. (or is is Dr.?) Corriher explaining some of the science.
  
• If you want to learn how to bake incredible cake, Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible is indispensable, same for her Bread Bible and Pie and Pastry Bible. I rarely fuck up a cake now, and if I do, I know why. And her cake recipes are brilliant. From learning to make her chocolate butter cake, I also discovered the secret to making the BEST cup of chocolate ever. The aforementioned Ms. Corriher's BakeWise is also excellent for beginners.
  
• The Larousse Gastronomique is probably the most famous book on cuisine. It's an encyclopedia which contains pretty much every cooking term. It's a pretty high-level book, but it is the authority.
  
  Have fun with it! =)

I haven't. I've got a bunch of science-y cookbooks.

Edit: Here is the best book I've found. It's a really heavy read, though: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

My other favorite, go to book is America's Test Kitchen Best American Classics. I also do recipe testing for ATK - regular recipes and gluten free.

Oh, and don't forget Michael Ruhlman's Ratio:The Simple Codes Behind The Craft of Everyday Cooking. This is the most amazing book. It's short and to the point as well. You begin to understand how a simple tweak to a recipe can create an entirely different dish.


I love how a great Mindcrack thread became a cooking thread. My 2 favorite things in life.

If you love to read, then I completely back up those who recommended J Kenji Lopez-Alt's "The Food Lab". He also spends some time on /r/seriouseats, which I think is really great. Food Lab is great because it explains not only HOW to make a recipe, but the WHY a recipe works the way that it does, and allows you to expand your cooking skills. His is not the only book that does this, but I've read Salt Fat Acid Heat and The Science of Cooking and a good portion of the tome that is Modernist Cuisine, but Kenji's style of writing is exceptionally approachable.

But my actual suggestion to someone who wants to go from never cooking to cooking healthy meals at home is to watch the recipes on Food Wishes, because he shows you what each step of the recipe is supposed to look like, and his food blog is not filled with flowery stories, but helpful tips.

Another great online resource that I used when I started cooking about 5 years ago was The Kitchn. They offer up basic technique videos on how to cook proteins and vegetables that are really simple to follow for beginners.

My advice to you is this: don't feel like you need to dive immediately into recipes. First learn how to season and cook a chicken breast or steak consistently, and roast the different kinds of vegetables. Then just start jumping into recipes that you want to try. And don't be afraid to ask questions here :)

I adore this cookbook (or any in that series, really). I know, you are asking: why buy a book when you can get recipes online for free? I will tell you: because these recipes will teach you how to cook and they are pretty much failproof.

The book is just a collection of recipes from Cook's Illustrated Magazine and basically it tackles standard recipes rather than funky new ones like many cooking magazines. They don't just grab any ol' recipe for meatloaf, lentil soup, fried chicken or whatever. They meticulously test each recipe and optimize the cooking strategy to make it perfect. Every recipe is accompanied by an article describing exactly why each ingredient is there and how each technique achieves the desired outcome. It is really quite scientific (I love that).

They also have tips/recipes for really basic things, like how best to chop onions or boil pasta which can be helpful if you don't have much experience.

It has been asked before, so do poke around a bit. But as always I'll recommend Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything as the best place to start. IMO he does a better job covering some of the really basic stuff like how to shop, easiest way to prepare x food, variants on x food, charts for flavors/combinations, etc. Really it's a great primer on HOW to cook and afterwards it's a handy reference.

I think Food Lab/Serious Eats is a better second cookbook because it's a bit less concerned with teaching the basics of a particular food, but a bit better at providing recipes that don't need tweaking. Bittman recipes are super simple but he really pushes you to adapt it to your taste, which in the end makes you a better cook. Food Lab is really into the science/method which is great, but IMO more complex than you need at the very beginning. The perfect burger, Kenji all day long, but WTF to do with that butcher cut you bought on sale, I prefer Bittman.

For a third cookbook, the Flavor Bible is also great.

First, to answer your question, I have found that How to Cook Everything has really helped me get comfortable with some basics like pan sauces/gravy and seasoning profiles.

As mentioned, obviously you can reduce a recipe proportionally, but as far as instructions go, a 3-4 pound pot roast will take much longer than a 1-1.5 pound one. You really just need to understand what the goal is. Is it color, tenderness, and/or temperature? A thermometer is key. The other two come with experience in adapting recipes.

Another thing about expiring ingredients. This has a lot to do with meal planning. So you have a small bag of golden potatoes. Maybe one night you decide to be classic and have steak & potatoes. So you boil 4 small potatoes, drain, quarter and add butter and dried parsley. Then, maybe later in the week you do breakfast-for-dinner and have eggs, homefries, and maybe you have some leftover steak to make it easier. Another example: Hot dogs one night? Don't let the buns collect mold -- make some garlic bread for some sort of pasta dish a couple days later.

I'm with you on fresh herbs. I use mostly dried spices and it works out for me pretty well. Occasionally I'll buy cilantro or basil, but not always. I only use chopped, minced garlic in the big jar. But I always have onion and bell pepper on hand. Something to check out is the website Still Tasty. I don't really use it often, but I have referenced it from time to time if I'm considering cooking with a produce item I don't use often.

Also, just a tip, buy family packs of meat and use a vacuum sealer such as a FoodSaver to individually package your proteins. You save money in the long run and have better quality ingredients, even if they've been in the freezer for a couple months.

• Taste of Home Best Loved - A great down-to-earth cookbook with homestyle meals that mom and grandma used to make.
  
• The Silver Spoon - Originally in Italian, hundreds of awesome, authentic Italian dishes using a massive array of ingredients.
  
• Gourmet Magazine Cookbook - I got my copy at a brick and mortar bookstore many years ago, and it may be out of print now. But it is full of elevated dishes that are easily obtainable at home.
  
• Dinner for Two - For years it was just my wife and I. This was the perfect little cookbook for us. Additionally, ATK has a similar cookbook. This isn't the one we have, but one like it. It's basically their recipes scaled down for two people.
  
• Bocuse Gastronomique - It's like an awesome cooking class on paper from the master himself.
  
• Bocuse - An awesome collection of recipes from Paul Bocuse.
  
• ATK Cookbook. I probably cook more from here than any other. I used to buy the new version every year with the newest recipes, but now I have the online subscription.
  
• The Flavor Bible that someone else linked.
  
  
  I could keep going but I should stop. So many great ones out there.

Any of the America's Test Kitchen cookbooks are fantastic for people learning how to cook. My boyfriend, like you, was a sandwich-pasta-burrito guy before these cookbooks. Now he can turn out a mean baked ziti and a pan of brownies :)

They've tested recipes extensively to find the easiest ways to create the most delicious, flavorful, fail-free versions of favorite foods. For each recipe, they describe the most common pitfalls of a recipe and how they avoid them, provide helpful illustrations, and make suggestions for the best cookware and ingredients to purchase (if you don't already have them). They most often do not recommend the most expensive option ;)

I recommend the Skillet cookbook and the New Best Recipe for starters.

This is probably my favorite cookbook ever, but I am not sure if it's a book that everyone would really enjoy reading. For me, the book is fascinating because it goes into an enormous amount of detail on ingredients, technique, and food science; at the same time, you kinda have to be a total need to read and enjoy such a sense book.

For something that everyone should read, I like to recommend Alton Brown's book "I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking"; it is basically the science and techniques from the first seasons of Good Eats, so I see it as kind of a Food Lab "lite", a great and very accessible way to introduce people to food and cooking,.

I don’t know what the availability of ingredients will be like where you live, but Yotam Ottolenghis books are beautiful and a real lesson in new flavours and textures. I have this at home and feel inspired to cook every time I flick through it https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jerusalem-Yotam-Ottolenghi/dp/0091943744

Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is wonderful and covers lots of basics and classics, although it doesn’t have photographs so could be a bit dry for him https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Art-French-Cooking-Boxed/dp/0307593525

If you’re raising the next Heston Blumenthal, this book will really help him understand how to combine flavours. It’s not a recipe book though, more of a guide on how to think of your own flavour combinations https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flavour-Thesaurus-Niki-Segnit/dp/0747599777

And finally, how about a personalised recipe book for him to make his own - something like this https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/473998816/free-personalized-recipe-book-wooden?ref=shop_home_feat_1

Hope he has a great birthday!

I found new joy in cooking when I learned about all the processes of how things cook. Like learning how to smoke meats with an electric smoker, learning how to bake breads, make cheese, curing meats, pickling, using a pressure cooker, a sous vides oven, how to grill, how to slow cook. Each lead to more. I read the book Modern Cuisine at Home by Nathan Myrvhold. A super important thing for me was how to preserve foods without refrigeration and smoking meats, pasteurization versus cooking.

Here are the absolute musts I think you (everyone) should learn with tons of easy to find resources (and why important):

1. Absolutely master the temperatures meats must be cooked at. Memorize. Buy a meat and a laser thermometer. (This is important because you don't want to overcook your stuff and you'll be amazed at how different temps affect food taste and texture)
   
   
2. Learn how to make the five standard French sauces. Learn about stocks. Make mayonnaise. (This will open a whole new world, master these five than add personal variables to infinite awesome)
   
   
3. Learn knife skills what each knife shape and size does, what the various types of cuts are. Learn how to "French" a meat cut. Buy at least a paring knife.
   
4. Learn how to debone and stuff a chicken. Use butchers twine.
   (You'll be amazed how much more you can do with some simple meat tweaks, also important for vegetarians)
   
   
5. Learn the difference between baking soda and baking powder and bread flour versus cake flour.
   
6. Bake bread by using a starter culture.
   (There is nothing better than baking home made breads and cakes and stuff. You can make oodles of variations, tarts sweet and savory, pasties and pastries awesome)
   
   
7. Learn about salt, yeast, curing and fermentation. Make pickles through fermentation.
   (Sounds scary but so opens the magic shut doors between amateur and professionals. Is easy and important an art that people have been doing for thousands of years.)
   
   
8. Learn the different meat cuts.
   (Learn about and buy cheap cuts of meat, you won't be upset if you screw something up and the cheaper the more flavorful)
   
   
9. Discover new devices to cook with; the easiest is the slow cooker (in fact these are all easy just slightly different) an electric smoker, pressure cooker, barbecue grill, sous vide, cast iron dutch oven. (You are probably saying; this guy is nuts but this can open huge doors to amazing flavors.)
   
   
10. add different textures and items for colors flavor combinations
    
    A big thing for me
    http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-Home-Nathan-Myhrvold/dp/0982761015
    (This book is great for the science behind cooking, an incredible and overlooked aspect behind cooking)
    
    http://www.walmart.com/ip/Masterbuilt-30-Electric-Smokehouse/7811422
    (This was something that really changed everything for me. I know you have a crappy apartment so do I, I keep mine on the patio and use it like a slow cooker, shovel wood in set temp come home to incredible food. Plus with black friday coming up there are huge discounts available although overseas I dunno.)
    

Radical suggestion: no bad snack foods. They don't sate you and are typically more expensive per-pound than something home-cooked. Replace with things like roasted potatoes, hummus and veggies, fruit, or a portion of a real meal. Plus, you'll get to work on your cooking! Opening a bag or a box does nothing for cooking skills.

Use meat as a condiment instead of a foundation of a meal, like an exception instead of a norm. Use rice and beans to bulk up the rest. Stir fry is a great way to add veggies, rice, and beans while reducing/removing meat. Try going vegetarian once a week; you'll be surprised with what solutions you come up with! Then up the frequency.

I typically have meat once a day, if at all. Plain oatmeal for breakfast. Rice, beans, veg, onion, garlic, and whatever meat (if any) I prepped for lunch this week. Eggs, potatoes, fish, fruit, veg, protein shakes, spaghetti, and peanut butter for the evening.

Full disclosure: I keep my grocery budget under $110 per month for myself shopping almost exclusively at Aldi and Giant Eagle for anything else (fresh ginger, tofu, frozen veggies typically). This does not include alcohol ($60 budgeted per month for bars, state stores, and wine shows; not always social) and restaurants ($50 budgeted per month, once or twice a week; always social).

How is your comfort in the kitchen? $5000 saved * 2 (current expenses) / 12 months = ~$833 per month. I hope you're feeding a family. In that case, implementing vegetarianism will be slower and harder but not impossible.

Links to explore:

• How to Cook Everything: I consult this each week and am trying to cook my way through it via my own odds and ends cross-referenced with the comprehensive index. Many, many recipes use the same ingredients and I typically buy one or two missing ingredients each week to complete the meal. Last week was eggplant curry with potatoes. There is also a vegetarian version that I plan to purchase when I'm done, but I can't speak to its quality.
  
• Budget Bytes: what I used before "How to Cook Everything". Similar deal: Beth is great about staples and taste, giving a price breakdown on each meal.
  
• /r/MealPrepSunday: I cook all lunches and portion them out so I don't have to worry about going out to lunch when I forget to prepare a meal.
  
• /r/slowcooking: I used a rice cooker with a slow-cooking function at the start of my frugal journey. I only use it to prepare rice now because I love using the range to cook. :)
  
• Frugalwoods' Rice, Bean, Mushroom, and Chili Lunch: I use Sriracha with red pepper flakes and yellow onion instead. Surprisingly tasty for how bland it seems.
  
• ERE Wiki Cookbook. Never used, but seems solid in practice.

YTA

Jesus I don’t even know where to begin with this. I’m gonna break it down the way I would for my toddlers.

I understand that you feel badly for being mean to Sarah, but do you think the problem will be solved by being mean to Luke and Scott? How would you feel if they sat you down and said “listen dad. We’ve been giving mom a really hard time lately so we’ve decided that for Mother’s Day this year we’re going to send her on an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii for the weekend. You’re gonna go too, but you have to pay your own way. Also, we’re giving you a new set of grill tongs for Father’s Day. Fair is fair!” You’d probably feel like they don’t care about you as much right?

The way to solve this problem is not by throwing money at your daughter and shoving your other kids’ faces in it. You could have avoided this ENTIRELY by not telling them IN FRONT OF SARAH exactly what you were giving her as a birthday gift. Also, once weekly veggie burger night is like the bare minimum you can be doing for your daughter food wise. Buy this book and do better.

Video series or anything? I really learned a ton reading The Professional Chef, which is a textbook in a lot of culinary schools I hear. I have the eTextbook version that has a lot of video links and interactivity.

If you're into the science behind cooking I'd also really recommend The Food Lab, I have the hard back version and it's also just a beautiful book.

I also have Cooking and Sauces by Peterson, also textbook quality books.

And of course, the ever popular Better Homes & Gardens Ring-Bound Cookbook, How to Cook Everything, and The Joy of Cooking are staples on my bookshelf as well. Great for reference or a quick look to find a particular recipe just to see how others do it.

I also browse a lot of websites and watch a lot on YouTube. I'll save recipes I find online using the Evernote Web Clipper and tag them so I can find them easily in the future. This works great because I can pull them up on my iPad while I'm cooking.

When a recipe calls for a method, tool, or ingredient I'm not very familiar with I'll usually just search it on YouTube and get some ideas about how to use it. That's worked really well for me so far.

1. I typically spend about $200/mo. on groceries, almost all at Costco, but I eat a lot, so YMMV. To be on the safe side, put down $250/mo. for groceries when you're doing your budget.
   
   
2. When I was sharing groceries and cooking duties with roommates, we'd cook dinner and eat leftovers at lunch. I usually grabbed lunch from Stamp on the days I had class, and one of my roommates would pack some leftovers to reheat.
   
   
3. Costco is the shit for groceries, everything's pretty high-quality and fresh, and cheap as hell. I don't know what I'd do without their freezer-ready packs of chicken and ground beef/turkey. Also, they sell 1lb resealable bags of precooked bacon... mmm, bacon....
   
   
4. If you've never really cooked before, buy How to Cook Everything. It's a really great book, complete with all kinds of recipes, and there are sections in the beginning that you can learn a lot from - knife skills, differences between cuts of meat, tips for grocery shopping, the tools and spices you should stock your kitchen with, etc... It's a really invaluable book IMO. Find some recipes you like and rotate between them.
   
   
5. The biggest tip for grocery shopping is to know what you're going to cook for the week beforehand, so you know what to get and how much. This will cut down on waste and save you money.
   
   Here's a really easy recipe that I've been making this semester with ingredients you can get all at Costco that's pretty versatile. I call it "clusterfuck rice":
   
   Ingredients
   
   

• .5lb pre-cooked bacon, chopped
  
• 1 pack ground turkey (~1.7lb, 80/20 lean)
  
• 1 pack chicken breast (~1.3lb), cubed
  
• 3 cups rice dry
  
• Your choice of produce (try any combination of onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, green beans, broccoli, carrots, snap peas, asparagus)
  
• Seasoning (curry powder-pepper-salt, paprika-garlic powder-cayenne-salt, cumin-paprika-garlic powder-cayenne-salt are ones I like)
  
  
  Directions
  
  

1. Slice and dice produce, sautee in a large pot
   
2. Start boiling 3.5-4 cups of water (adjust for amount and type of rice as needed)
   
3. Lightly brown chicken in another pan (don't cook all the way through), add to pot and stir
   
4. Lightly brown turkey and toss in bacon towards the end, add to pot and stir
   
5. Add dry rice to pot and stir thoroughly
   
6. When water boils, add seasonings to pot, and slowly add all the water
   
7. Turn heat back up to medium-high, stir consistently, waiting until water comes to a boil again
   
8. Once water boils, turn heat down to medium-low, cover pot, stir every 5-10 minutes for 30-60 minutes.
   
   
   Macros:
   
   

• ~5000 kcal
  
• ~150g fat
  
• ~500g carb
  
• ~400g protein
  
  This lasts me about 4 meals usually, but I'm a weightlifter and eat a ton, so if you're splitting food with roommates, this should feed the whole apartment for dinner and whoever wants to take leftovers for lunch.
  

Just stumbled upon this sub and am excited to participate! I think this will be a fun little project for next year. :)

1. What do you like to cook? I like to cook very simple recipes. I am trying to sustain a Keto/Low Carb diet and find that many recipes are overly complicated fake food that use ingredients I don't normally keep to try and fake the delicious, carby stuff. Before I kicked carbs (mostly) I was definitely a meat and potatoes girl. Now I guess I'm more of a meat and cauliflower girl ;)
   
2. Who is your favorite chef (famous or family)? Famous: Julia Child, family: my mother. Both share some similar characteristics in that they are fearless in the kitchen and overcome mistakes as learning opportunities. I don't think I've ever seen my mom screw up a recipe in a way that she couldn't salvage. She cooks simple recipes that are always delicious and carry much of her mother's history and heritage in them. If I'm half as good a cook as her, I'll be pleased. I still have a long way to go in terms of fearlessness and skill.
   
3. What is your favorite cook book and why? Though I've never cooked anything from it yet- Charleston Receipts. It's a collection of historic recipes from Charleston, my home town. Many recipes are things I wouldn't necessarily make (calf's head anyone?), but my mom tells me my grandmother tried that one once and never again! I love the history and stories that go along with the recipes.
   
4. What are you looking to learn? I'd like to be more comfortable with technical skills and knowledge, pairing of different flavors and have a few go-to recipes in my back pocket that are sure to impress if company drops by.
   
5. Do you have any recipes that you would like to make but are afraid and why? I don't know why, but I'm afraid to make any kind of roast in the oven. It's a big monetary commitment to buy a big ole' roast of any kind, should I cook it in my crock pot or the oven (and will it fit?), when do I have the time to babysit this thing all day?
   
6. What ingredient do you just not like and could you be persuaded to try it if the right recipe came along? Tilapia. I hate the smell, the taste, the texture. Maybe in a fish taco with a bunch of other crap to cover it up?

I like roasting it at a real high temp to get super crispy skin and tender meat... I think I used a test kitchen recipe but here's another http://www.savorsa.com/2013/01/easiest-and-best-high-heat-roast-chicken-gets-our-vote/
And best book for spice blends or marinades (for ALL types of meat) is this http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0376020598?cache=91b502bf1ba3a7cb7e324514d079bfe2&pi=SL500_SY115#ref=pd_aw_sims_1 also really, really great, easy, sophisticated grilling recipes.

You need to find a rabbi and start reading, really. Kashrus is a great start, but also a hard one. Don't expect to be perfect right off the bat. R' Forst's The Kosher Kitchen is a fantastic start for that. There's also shabbos, which really means you need to move to a Jewish community and be within walking distance of a synagogue. In the meantime, find people who can host you on shabbos and holidays (which we're in the clear on for several months). And really I'd just recommend a conversion reading list like this one. It has the basics that one needs to know and is a fantastic start to living an observant Jewish life.

So I just got done with a 4.25 mile run (35 minutes 4 seconds so I'm not exactly the Flash yet) and I became a vegetarian back in March, so I'm still relatively new to it, not exactly a distance runner but I regularly put in over 12 miles a week.

First: This is a very good book http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0764524836

Second: The biggest thing you'll realize about being a vegetarian is that after you're done eating, you don't feel bloated or weighed down like you normally would after eating an enormous steak or something like that. Obviously this helps with running (like in the morning if you just eat some cereal with milk, a banana and some juice)

Third: People say eat a lot of nuts and peanuts. I can't do that or I will die (allergies), so I eat a lot of soy, eggs, eggplant, mushrooms, stuff like that.

Fourth: I really hate diet supplement stuff for workouts but I buy like four protein shakes a week from Ensure to offset what I might not get from meat. I get the Ensure ones instead of something like "MUSCLE MILK" because I'm not some juicehead muscle dude.

Fifth: Whenever possible, go whole grain/whole wheat when eating pasta/bread. There's a really good vegetarian/vegan-friendly pizza place near me that offers a lot of whole wheat stuff, so I always get whole wheat pizza crust. So good.

A lot of the time, people ask why I became a vegetarian. Really, the answer is "I felt like it." It started as a challenge (can I go the whole month of April without eating meat? Yes, I could, so now why should I stop?) Also I'm 6'4"~6'5" and about 200 lbs and I'd like to get down to 190 lbs or ideally 180, hence all the running.

TL;DR - sorry but there is no TL;DR, you have to read the whole thing!

The one book that has changed my cooking game was The Way to Cook by Julia Child. It’s not the cheapest book, but can be gotten for $12 used it looks like.

I grew up with Mexican/Spanish cuisine being my forté. And I get Thai influence from my wife. But the fundamentals and education in that book are universally applicable. The great thing is that if I want a spin on one of Julia’s recipes, I can google it and a dozen people have made variations of each recipe due to her influence in the cooking world.

Serious Eats is a wonderful website for getting the why behind the how in cooking as well.

I wish you all the best!

These goals are cool! You are going to get a lot of advice on the losing weight stuff, but cooking is my jam. Its hard to get over the hump from making recipes to just cooking what's in the fridge. So in the meantime, you will do well to try a variety of things that from cookbooks that you think sound good.

My favorite cookbook right now is: http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744. It is full of all the staples you will need, and each recipe comes with a long explanation which gives insight about why they cooked it the way they did. It is huge, but very accessible.

I also occasionally bust out my 1953 Better Home and Gardens cookbook, but that is pretty rare and only when I just need to feel like a housewife.

Cooking for yourself will help your other goals - cooking is its own craft project, and knowing exactly what you are putting into your body will help you understand what needs to change in order to lose weight.

cRc standards? Star-K? There are a few, most of it is minor but you should know them and know what applies for you. Also, your community minhag may also dictate some of these things.

For example, some allow using the same dishwasher for meat/dairy since the water isn't yad soledes bo and there is an agent like lye (mentioned in S"A) in use.

>What basics do I need?

Depends on how often you eat various items, I very, very rarely eat meat so I have very few meat items for example.

But I have a large variety of parve items.

Overall you will want separate kli rishonim for meat/dairy/parve but not like 1:1:1, since you will cook different things in them. Also sponges and scrapers and serving utensils.

I would walk through a typical menu for you and see what works, like do you only have a dairy pot for vegetables or other sides and will that come to be a problem when you are making a meat meal?

Since I mainly eat parve I can duplicate a lot of my dairy since it isn't usually an issue. I have an instapot and I have 3 interior pots/liners/steam catchers for Shabbat meals.

You will also want knives for cutting that are parve/dairy/meat this is a fantastic meat knife and is really cheap and all the chef's I know recommend it. It's great for chopping/cutting.

You might also want to check out the books Kosher Kitchen which talks a lot about the details, but your community might be more lenient than that book in some places here and there.

But overall I'd go through and start with thinking about how you want to use your kitchen then apply the rules of kashrut and see if it is an issue.

Also, get some heat resistant color tape, so you can correctly label your items.

At some point, you might also look at if your stove/other items can be kashered for Pesach and if you need like a sperate burner just for Pesach (I have to do this since my place has a glass stove top)

It sounds like you need a good cookbook. Books are great because usually they don't just contain recipes, but will have information about techniques, explanations and substitutions for ingredients, even general ideas on how to approach cooking.

I started learning to cook using Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. It's not perfect but it's a good place to start and has a lot of explanatory information in addition to recipes.

Other suggestions:

• The Joy of Cooking is the Bible of American cooking, I'd recommend it if you don't mind big encyclopedic texts.
  
  
• Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan is an incredible cookbook if you like Italian food.
  
  
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat and Ratio by Michael Ruhlman are both supposed to be great beginner cooking texts that look at more of the general approach to cooking than particular recipes. I haven't read either so can't personally say, but they might be worth a look.

While the classics are classic for a reason, they have a dirty little secret: they reflect the food tastes of the time in which they we written. I almost never cook anything from Mastering the Art anymore, because tastes have moved on.

Today, I would start a new cookbook collector with How to Cook Everything, any edition. 20 years ago, it would have been Joy of Cooking. 40 years ago Fannie Farmer. 60 years ago, Betty Crocker, which now doesn't even turn up on Amazon on the first search page. I own all those cookbooks - and a ton more, but Bittman is where to start now, IM (rarely)HO, because he reflects general tastes, techniques and availability of today. I wouldn't part with my Escoffier, but I read it for taste inspiration, not recipes these days.

This afternoon, I was editing my cookbook collection to make room for some more advanced books in a few areas and to eliminate some dated ones, so the topic is fresh on my mind. I will never part with some older books that have the stains and happy memories of many successful uses and some fun litigation from my book publishing days, but cooking is a dynamic art. Knowing how to develop a tin type will not make you a better digital photographer.

Alton has had a few endorsed products and specifically designed pieces come out on the food network website! Give me a bit to find links and I will edit my comment! I have a measuring cup from him I will never give up.

Edit!

"“Alton Brown’s Gear for Your Kitchen,” his long-awaited homage to tools and gadgetry, was published by STC in September 2003 and was nominated for both a James Beard Award for Best Cookbook in the Tools & Techniques category and an IACP Cookbook Award in the Food Reference/Technical category. Gear is an essential guide to all the “hardware” you need in the kitchen packed with practical advice and tips, this book takes a look at what’s needed and what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t." (This is more of a guide for the whole kitchen, but this is a start)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1584796960/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/176-8554438-3212524?ref_=pd_bxgy_b_img_c


Off the Good Eat's Fan Page here's a more specific list, and I know back in the day he has endorsed all-clad and Viking cookware (most chefs will endorse all-clad)

http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/References/Equipment.htm


Hope this helps for anyone who is curious!

If you are looking for basic cooking information the Joy of Cooking is obligatory.

A couple things I've learned along the way is first to start slow and work through cookbooks. It's easy to keep buying book after book but they are just decoration if you don't know them well. Secondly, be wary of books with lots of pretty pictures! In my experience they are full of single-purpose recipes that don't teach you the true nature or source as you spoke of above.

As far as source recipes I'd second everything mentioned so far but if you are looking to blow people away with Italian and Mexican dishes (my particular favorite styles)... look no further than:

The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan - Possibly my favorite author of cookbooks of all time. This is definitely the one to start with in my opinion.

The Art of Mexican Cooking - Diana Kennedy - If you are looking for real mexican food this book is a great place to start.

Bonus Book... not a cookbook but a great way to learn about cooking

>Dude here.

Ditto.

> bride multitasking her way to a mental breakdown and groom just trying not to get yelled at.

Bingo.

>we are there to not fuck things up.

At first I was told my responsibility was to show up (mostly) sober and dressed.

> I'd wager he wants to be more involved too but doesn't know how.

See: and groom just trying not to get yelled at.

I like the idea of the weekly meeting, but getting closer I think that time frame would probably have to be shortened a bit. I know it was hard for her to get me involved, but like you suggest she found the things I was comfortable with and put those with me. Thankfully it wasn't anything I could really screw up either.

It started with something very basic: stuffing and sealing the various envelopes. From there she added picking up specific items from certain stores (texted to me so I could check numbers and such). I am at the point of building/painting pieces needed for the reception, printing stuff, and even helping to register (partial thanks to Alton).

It's all stuff that I am more than capable of dealing with on my own, but when you add in the complications of budgets and schedules and all that other stuff (like making sure she is happy) it can be overwhelming at times.

>I'd go Death on the Nile

Second, but just because I like the style.

How to Cook Everything

There' an iPhone app with the recipes that will build shopping lists for you as well. My GF is a catering manager for a large venue here in NYC; she's a food snob by profession. But she always loves the beef stir fry from Mark's book, despite the fact that it's 5 or so easily obtained ingredients. Maybe she just likes the inevitable sex. We may never know.

I think the Joy of Cooking is a great reference once you get the basics down. I also think online recipes can be hit or miss. As a beginner, having ONE good book is better than the entirety of the internet IMHO. There's just too much information coming at you.

That being said, I made this recipe every 2 weeks for about half a year. Every time I'd vary the spices a bit, to experiment. It's really simple, refrigerates well, and tastes pretty good.

The McGee Bible is probably the best food-science oriented cookbook ever written.

This Book is basically the same content but condensed and made more accessible, so its a good starting point if you don't want a huge doorstop of a book to page through.

Good Eats by Alton Brown is a pretty awesome how-to show that combines food science and comedy. poke around for full episodes if you can find them, its worth it.

as for podcast format...not sure if I've encountered a good one in strictly audio. maybe just look for books on tape?

Find a good vegetarian cookbook. Two fantastic ones for vegetarians are How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman, and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. Both of them have tons of recipes which don't use fake meat or processed ingredients.

If you're serious about reducing or avoiding all animal products, you might want to look for a good vegan cookbook as well. I like the Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Romano. It's good because it covers a huge range of dishes, and if there something you're especially craving (like Sloppy Joes or Chicken Pot Pie) you can usually find a reasonable analogue.

I'm basically vegetarian for practical reasons when I eat with friends or at restaurants, and vegan when I cook for myself at home. If you're going to be relearning how to cook without meat, I've found it's really pretty easy to take the extra step and cut out dairy and eggs as well.

It's not that hard if you're not one of these reddit hivemind 'bacon is teh sex' type of people. Just be open minded. Be willing to try new foods that you've never heard of (e.g. tempeh).

I've been sort of vegetarian for 4 years, I guess. Since I am doing it for health reasons, I am willing to eat meat when I feel like it. I'll eat a delicious piece of meat if it is a special occasion. Fish more often than anything else, but definitely minimal red meat (once every 4-6mo maybe).

In terms of diet, research the nutrients that you need. A full amino acid protein profile takes thought (rice+beans, soybeans are the only vegetarian source with all the necessary AA) and this is especially important if you lift weights (I usually overload on skim milk). Maybe talk to a nutritionist if you worry about these things, but you will pick it up with time. Do not eat too many processed foods in an attempt to maintain your vegetarianism.

One big pro for me: it forces me to work on my cooking skills. It is easy to prepare meat to be pretty good. It takes a bit more thought for me to make a delicious vegetarian meal.

This cookbook is good. So is this one.

Gastronomique is an incredible resource for all pretty much anything edible.

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is also a great resource but is more like a text book than a cook book.

The Ideas in Food books are pretty good too.

I guess I've been leaning more towards "educational" type reading lately (opposed to recipe tomes). Ratio is also very good. Does reddit like Ruhlman?

If you're going to cook, you'll need some basic tools. A saute pan, a large saucepan and a smaller saucepan should be good to start, along with a mixing bowl or two, a sheet pan, a casserole dish, a washable (plastic) cutting board, a couple of wooden spoons and some tongs. You'll need a couple of knives too - an 8" chefs knife and a smaller paring knife will take care of just about every job in the kitchen. Crazy gadgets aren't necessary for a beginner (and the more experienced you get the more you'll find they probably aren't necessary at all). Most everything you need can be procured at thrift stores or tag sales if you're on a tight budget. Stay away from older Teflon non-stick pans; if you feel more comfortable with non-stick over stainless, try to get anodized instead. To prevent accidents, keep your knives sharp.

Memorize or print this out: Safe Minimum Temperatures

Definitely always have salt, pepper and olive oil on hand. You probably don't need one of those all-in-one spice racks with every herb known to man in it; you'd be surprised how little of them you end up using. Fresh herbs are nearly always better, anyway. The main dried ingredients I keep on hand now are cumin, red pepper flakes, (about 6 varieties of) chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder.

Grab a couple of cookbooks (How To Cook Anything and The Joy of Cooking are awesome and include lots of different types of cuisine) and just try something you like. Start with recipes that don't have a lot of ingredients or steps. Start with recipes you know you like. If you don't understand what they mean when they tell you to do something, Youtube is definitely your friend.

Taste often. Don't feel like you have to stick to the book 100%. If something needs more pepper, a dash of hot sauce, a pat of butter, put it in. You are the one who has to eat it, so make it yours. Remember, you can always add more of something, but it's pretty tough to add less. Don't feel bad if it doesn't come out perfectly the first time, or the second. It seems daunting at first, but if you keep at it, it gets much easier.

Edited to add: http://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners

Good on you for deciding to make a healthy change! Definitely check out the /r/EatCheapAndHealthy/ sub. It's a kind and helpful group that routinely gives great tips and recipes.

If you're just starting out, investing in a basic cookbook is an excellent way to learn cooking skills at your own pace. I'd get one that starts with boiling eggs and such basics, then progresses to simple recipes. How to Cook Everything: The Basics and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian are good ones, both by Mark Bittman. Another good resource is BudgetBytes.com.

Also, you might do some reading up on meal planning. IMO, it's just as important as the cooking and eating.

Bakers make great modernist cooks because it requires so much forethought/calculation. As for resources, my first book was Cooking for Geeks, then the Modernist Cuisine book set from Nathan Myhrvold (and have it signed by him "For Science!") which is the bible, but free options include their website, Seattle Food Geek, molecular recipes, this YouTube playlist from Harvard and the usual science-based cooking resources like Good Eats, America's Test Kitchen, and Chef Steps.

I learned not to overthink the ice sphere mold: fill it with water and take it out after three hours, then melt a hole in the top and suction out the liquid water with a syringe. The chocolate was tempered then about a tablespoon was dolloped into each half, joined, and tumbled for coverage. Turn every 15 minutes in the fridge until it pulls away from the mold.

The goat cheese was thinned to an oozy consistency with goat's milk to get the desired "popping" effect. I wanted to do something creamy that would complement the char on the lamb and acidity of the vinaigrette.

Best things to sous vide: Eggs to various stages of yolk doneness, well-marbled but tough cuts of meat (think USDA Prime grade Chuck steak and pork ribs) over 72 hours at 140F, salmon with smoked salt to 113F is spreadable like butter

There's a cooking for beginner's subreddit as well by the way.

---

I found certain cook books more helpful than others. As a science type, I deeply appreciated this time which should be in your local library. It explains what "meat" is: muscles, and how it all works, and how heat affects it chemically. All the steps are very clear, the photography is beautiful, and steps are written exactly like a chemistry lab.

The meat chapter explains why different cuts of meat are different and what to do with each.

---

Start with beef or good quality fish: both are safe to eat even if undercooked. Maybe take a scientific approach, even: cut up different chunks of the same size, blot dry with paper towel to minimize splutter.

Put pan on stove at medium setting, add about teaspoon of oil and spread across surface evenly. When you can feel heat on your hand about 3 inches from the heated surface, add meat.

After one minute remove one chunk and rest on plate. After another minute remove another. And so on. Observe the differences. Now taste them. Then add little salt and pepper and taste again.

Small steps. :)

I used to be the kid who threw pop corn kernels on the stove without oil and almost set the house on fire. My then boyfriend needed to walk me through cooking my first egg. We all start somewhere.

Hi Alton,

I just wanted to say that I absolutely loved your book I'm Just Here for the Food. I actually found it at the SF public library, and having seen Good Eats and knowing how entertaining you were, I figured it was worth a try. I was right! It was the first cook book I had ever seen which tried to teach the theory behind cooking as opposed to just being a collection of recipes, and I found it to be both a handy guide to cooking, and also just a fun and interesting read in general (I really liked the food-science kind of approach).

No questions, just wanted to say thanks for the entertainment, and the help learning to cook!

I also agree with the idea of going to the library or bookshops to browse before you buy. But for many years, my absolute go to cookbook has been Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. If I could only have one cookbook, this would be it. I like simple approaches to cooking, and Mark writes in a way that makes even the most daunting recipes approachable. For the same reason, I'm a big fan of Jamie Oliver's cookbooks. They're written in the same way. If you ever get a chance to watch his early BBC series the Naked Chef it's wonderful. Technnology abounds however, and I find myself going more and more often to the wonderful and free New York Times Cooking app on my iPhone. Good Luck!

This book brought me from making inedible soups (literally I would have to throw them out) to making awesome soup. https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0764524836

There's a page about how to freestyle your own soup. The basic is start with a fat (like olive oil) and add aromatics (like garlic), and cook until it smells good. Then add vegetables and liquid (I'm forgetting which order the author recommended but it would probably be fine either way). He has lots of suggestions for how to get wild with different ingredients, and there's even an exciting page about how adding cabbage at different points in the cooking process can change the soup.

Also, treat yourself to an immersion blender. Makes vegan soups taste like they are full of butter and cream. (Also super handy for salad dressing recipes!)

Alton Brown's cookbooks are quite good, so I'll add my voice to those recommending them.

If you don't need color glossy photos, "The New Best Recipe" from the folks at Cook's Illustrated magazine has great recipes and thorough instructions.

When you someday move beyond the basics, I'd also throw in a plug for Michael Ruhlman's "Ratio" and Jacques Pepin's "Complete Techniques". Ruhlman's book breaks some recipes (like doughs, batters, and custards) down to their basic components and will help you understand how to modify or even improvise with some kinds of recipes, and Pepin's book has great illustrations that can help get you through some of the techniques mentioned by not described by cookbooks. Pepin's Techniques might even prove useful to you now as a reference, depending on what other cookbooks you're working with.

Watch Jacques pepin videos on youtube he is a master of technique and the reasons why we do things the way we do in a kitchen. This is a great book.

• http://www.amazon.com/Jacques-Pepins-Complete-Techniques-P%C3%A9pin/dp/1579122205/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1318406390&sr=8-2 *
  
  
  Yeah practice practice practice and always stay clean, messy cooking can sometimes lead to getting sick or knocking things over and starting fire who knows a clean station is a happy one. Also Harold McGee is great he does allot of food science (I.E. what meat does in different stages of being heated and why)
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318406624&sr=1-1-spell
  
  
  Finally a great little utility is the food lovers companion its got conversion charts meat cut charts and its a fully glossary of ingredients (like every ingredient)its really handy
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Lovers-Companion-Barrons-Cooking-Guide/dp/0764112589/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318406737&sr=1-2-spell
  
  
  If your a visual learner and want to know how to do something In cooking you tube has tons of great videos.

My meat eating husband and I have a very similar situation. He makes dinner once a week, sometimes he gets creative but usually it's fried egg sandwiches! If you like cooking and are interested in learning some Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is really great and will help you with tons of general cooking basics too. A go-to favorite of ours is this Black Bean Posole

• Today is my last day before a 9-day vacation. I have absolutely nothing planned beyond getting a few more items checked off my to-do list (such as visiting the rest of the locations in my Little Adventures in Tokyo book and finishing the dozen or so recipes I've yet to make from the 101 essential recipes in the back of How to Cook Everything [incidentally, also a great phone app]).
  
  
• Radish Bo-ya delivery incoming tomorrow morning. One of the best things about getting a box of new vegetables every other week is that I'm finally starting to learn some food names, which has strangely been a bit of a mental block of mine. Just the other week I learned what 菜の花 is (rather, I learned the name for it), and that it cooks up quite nicely with some olive oil and canned tuna.
  
  
• I'm visiting Le Wagon today for their student demos. I'm still not quite ready to commit to joining a bootcamp (or even figuring out what direction I want to move my so-called career in next), but this will be further information for my (at times agonizingly slow) internal analysis.
  
  
• Rewatched Three Amigos and Sneakers this past week. Three Amigos seemed well meant, but sadly devoid of much actual laugh-out-loud humor. On the other hand, I'd forgotten how much I loved Sneakers as a kid. There were some parts near the end that didn't hold up (where exactly did all those extra guards get to?), but the movie is so much fun it's hard to find fault with it.
  
  
• Also saw Things We Lost in the Fire, which was fantastic. Not a false or saccharine note throughout.
  
  
• While I've fallen a bit behind in my Anki studies and meditation, and neither are getting completed every day recently, I'm looking forward to getting back on track over GW. I know my recent struggle to stay on top of these is mostly due to the slow buildup of stress that comes from not having had a long vacation since December, so GW should be just the thing.
  
  
• Exhibiting some of my sketches this weekend along with the rest of my drawing group. Nothing special on my end, but it's the first time I've shown my drawings publicly so that's some sort of small milestone. Honestly, I thought I might be more nervous, but really they're just sketches and not anything I've poured my heart and soul into. I'll aim for the heart and soul pouring for the next exhibition ;-)
  
  EDIT: My proclivity for anal retentiveness forced me to link all the things :-D I am now at peace with the world.

Buy a (very) basic cookbook and have at it. One of those "how to cook pretty much everything in one or two simple ways" collections. I'm a big fan of "The New Best Recipe" which would be pricey new but can be had for cheap secondhand. "The Betty Crocker Cookbook" is another one that gets a lot of love too.

Read it the important bits. There's stuff in there about types of pans, about the difference between cumin and cardamom and cinnamon and cayenne, about how to hold a knife without cutting your fingers off and how to boil water without setting the stove on fire.

When you have read the important stuff and have begun to get a feel for what you need to do, select a simple recipe and make it. Start small. A pasta sauce maybe, a casserole.

Here's a piece of advice, too: Take notes. Write in the margins or get a notebook but keep track of whether you substituted oil for butter or if you needed less cooking time. It can save you some tears in the future, help you replicate happy accidents.

Chopping skills has to be high up on the list. I don't have a good book on this, but have seen several possible good ones on Amazon. There are lots of videos online as well. I'd learn and master all types of cuts on all types of items (meat, veggies, fruit, etc).

If you're wanting to be a chef (i.e. not just a cook), having some knowledge about why methods/recipes are a certain way would be good too (e.g. books like On Food and Cooking: http://www.amazon.com/On-Food-Cooking-Science-Kitchen/dp/0684800012).

Not quite a direct answer to your question, but hopefully useful

If you're just starting to cook, I would recommend just getting a good cookbook, and hold the kosher cookbook until later. I would start with How to Cook Everything and/or How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. They are both by Mark Bittman, and are incredible - they have tons of recipes with tons of variations. If you're looking for a good "Jewish Food" cookbook, I would recommend Joan Nathan The Jewish Holiday Kitchen. She has a new cookbook, Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: Jewish Cooking in France that's great - I've already used it a lot and I only got it in August! Also Leah Koenig's new Hadassah Cookbook is getting wonderful reviews - I haven't picked mine up yet. I don't much care for the Suzie Fishbein Kosher by Design cookbook series. I find her recipes gimmicky and weird. Here's a good online recipe resource.

This book would combine my to favorite hobbies, science & cooking. I think having a better understanding of the reactions that go on would help me be a more intuitive cook and baker. Plus it just sounds so darn interesting! haha

I'm mostly a baker although I do like to cook. Baking came naturally to me as I just understood the ratios of ingredients better. I'd like to learn more about cooking though so I can improve my skills haha.

What are some of your hobbies?

I usually tell people to check out How to Cook Without a Book. It has some recipes, but it's more about giving readers a better understanding of techniques, how to put something together from what you already have on hand, and what things you should just keep around at all times because of their usefulness. As opposed to a lot of books I've seen that give a list of things to buy which will then need to be prepped with tools you might not have.

edit: If you got money to spend and really dig the art and science of cooking there is also Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. At just under $550 USD it's the most expensive and most beautiful cookbook I've ever seen.

For a non-cook, I think a good place to start is a vegetarian or vegan cookbook. Meat's pretty easy to cook. Vegetables take more technique. Just practice! :)

You don't have knives? Buy this knife. There are lots of great, expensive knives that you'll never need (I have a few). This one is the best, if you ignore the blade-heads out there who don't spend less than $150 on a knife.

Do you have a Crockpot? The most inexpensive cuts of meat require long cook times, and a slow cooker will knock that out while you're at work. If there are only two of you, a 2-qt. Crockpot runs $15.


Do some reading on paleo fats. Fat is what will keep you running throughout the day.

Enjoy your kitchen!

>Still no progress. Am leaving either tomorrow or Thursday for the Carolinas on a documentation trip. Hopefully I can get an interview up there while I'm out. I probably won't. Also, I told off a company for writing me off prematurely.

good luck!

>Pursuant to 1, obviously going nowhere. That said, I've done more travel this year than I have since 2003.

I live with my aunt and uncle. Living at home is pretty much normal for kids our age. Out of my 5 closest friends, only 2 live on their own. One is in Iraq the other is in Med School.

>3 Start paying off my massive debts.

I hear you there. Good luck I hope your father's cancer goes into remission. My dad died of a stroke in 2003. A parent's death is never ever good for mental health/financial stability.

>I'm down to 194.2 naked from a max at 252. I'm also just back from a 6 mile walk, which is what I'm up to now each day.

Keep up the good fucking work. I went from 230-169 over two years. Most of it was not eating so much. The last 20lbs was from dedicated exercise. You can do it if I can. Its all about willpower. I used Sparkpeople.com to track my calories. You really don't need as much food as you think you do. Swimming is the best exercise for sculpting body muscles and losing weight fast.

>5 Learn to cook.
Get On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of Food Its an entertaining read which allows you to understand the foundation of cooking so you can wing your own recipes based on your knowledge of the underlying chemistry.

I am going to suggest this book (AKA the book that for me started it all). It's an older book, but still pretty good.

Also you can go poking around and find cookbooks (there is a good sized vegetarian cookbook section at my local used bookstore... so many cookbooks) including some more basic ones. Though I have to suggest this one it was a Christmas gift from my sister, and it goes through not just recipes but techniques and the like.

Roasted lemony chicken thighs with a lemon and white wine sauce, potatoes roasted under the chicken, and steamed broccoli. That was fantastic but the Light And Fluffy Pancakes from The New Best Recipe were pretty awesome too.

I personally have not used this cookbook, but I had a friend once that loved it. May be worth a look for your husband - the description (as well as several reviews) state that it does a great job at explaining things in detail

There is also this book by the same author that is apparently more basic and focused on learning proper cooking techniques.

It's not so much a cookbook, but it's a great book on cooking and the science behind it but I like On Food and Cooking

http://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012

It's much more into the hows and whys of cooking than "this is how you make a creme brulee" but it's a cool reference. Alton Brown's books have a little bit more of the recipe + science.

For actual cooking tutorials, Julia Child probably does the best. It's a classic book for a reason.

Here are the 2 books I cut my teeth on learning how to cook:
The best one for a new cook, cooking for a family would be "Cheap Fast Good" it gives you: Quick meals, healthy meals, bulk cooking (cook the basics like chicken, beef, etc now, freeze in meal portions, and defrost for use in recipes later), grocery shopping tips (if you have to start doing that), and lots of other cool stuff. I really can't more highly recommend another book for a brand new cook who wants simple family friendly but still healthy meals
http://www.amazon.com/Cheap-Fast-Good-Beverly-Mills/dp/0761131760/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370293256&sr=1-1&keywords=cheap+fast+food

Once you've got the basics down and you want to start impressing guests and even yourself try getting Mark BIttman's "How to Cook Everything". This is my food bible. I go to it a couple times a week for stuff. It is worth the price http://www.amazon.com/Cook-Everything-Completely-Revised-Anniversary/dp/0764578650/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370293332&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+cook+everything

Cooking really isn't too hard once you understand the science of it. I would suggest getting a cookbook that explains why a recipe is cooked a certain way. For example, this one by Alton Brown. You could and probably should look up some of his stuff on youtube, too.
I'll give you a few basic tips to start -

• high heat generally means you want crispy or burnt on the outside and soft/underdone on the inside. It's really only used for searing and boiling
  
• low heat usually means you're cooking something slowly and will make things soft or soggy
  
• taste as you go, when possible
  
• if you're cooking something in oil, let the oil get hot first or the food will stick to the pan
  
• don't be afraid to use spices, herbs, salt, and pepper. Simple things I like are onion powder, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. You can also get Mrs. Dash blends.
  
  You can always subscribe to r/fitmeals, r/cooking, or r/food too.
  
  Learning to cook will take some time. For now, I'd recommend baking a lot. Roast veggies, bake some chicken breasts, stuff like that.
  Roasting veggies is really easy. Cube the veggies of your choice, coat in olive oil, salt, and pepper and bake at 375 for about 20 minutes or until tender.
  
  Good luck! And be proud of yourself for figuring this out before you actually have a problem. It will be so much easier to start since you're at a healthy weight.

So a few off the top of my head:

1. The Professional Chef. Geared towards professional chefs but a great resource.
   
   
2. On Food and Cooking. A classic. Not really a 'cookbook' per se but rather a book that discusses history and food science.
   
   
3. The now out-of-print Williams and Sonoma Mastering Series. Specifically, their book on sauces - the others are solid but not quite as good. Those books were how I personally learned to cook. (still can find used)
   
   
4. The Flavor Bible. Obligatory. Eventually you grow out of it a bit, but it's still a great resource to have around.
   
   
5. Flour Water Salt Yeast. I just got this book recently this last Christmas, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

Congratulations on observing kashrut!

Rice and veggies, wraps, so many options! I recommend looking through food blogs to get ideas, and then if the recipe needs it- make it kosher!

One great kosher food blog I love is Kosher in the Kitch

also, if you need any more information on the laws of Kashrut, or a good guide (as it can be confusing at times), here are two:
How to Keep Kosher

The Kosher Kitchen

Well, it's not really a cookbook per se, but it's definitely for food geeks:
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.

Otherwise, how about the New Moosewood Cookbook. I found a copy of it used and it's pretty easy, affordable, tested, with delicious recipes.

Not indian but since you seem to actually care about food check out, On food and Cooking I have this book and it's amazing. I also have a friend going to the Portland culinary institute and he mentioned that ALL his professors recommend it.

Alton Brown is a huge geek and had a career in making film/tv before he became a cook and than a cooking show host. He actually filmed this music video for R.E.M. early in his career..

Yeah, huge geek. I highly suggest his books, too. I have his first one, I'm Just Here For The Food, and it contains my favorite recipe in the world. Get it, find the page with his Chicken with Garlic and Shallots, cook it in a slow cooker and omfgbbq, IT IS AWESOME. It's also insanely easy to make.

Once you've started down the road with Alton, there's a bunch of other books I can suggest. Feel free to drop me a line anytime.

Edit: Oh, and while watching the show, pay attention to any clock in the background. A good deal of the time they're set to 4:20.

Ratio by Michael Ruhlman (https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728) - My absolute favorite at home cook book, hits everything you're looking for I think. Has baking and cooking recipes

Baking by Hand (https://www.amazon.ca/Baking-Hand-Artisanal-Pastries-Without/dp/1624140009/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468117705&sr=1-1&keywords=baking+by+hand) - More technically complicated, but still great. One of my go to books when I'm looking to learn something new. Mostly breads, but some pastries too

How to Cook Everything (Vegetarian) by Mark Bittman (https://www.amazon.ca/How-Cook-Everything-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0764524836/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468117750&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+cook+everything+vegetarian) - this is the dark horse, you'd be surprised how much he includes in these books. Pizza dough recipe is the bomb.

Not sure I follow your math there ... but sure! Unfortunately a lot of our recipes are in books, not online. Lots of time checking the clearance section in bookstores. If you're looking to buy a book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is a great place to start, especially if you're not an avid cook already.

But there are a few online, so here goes!

• This week we're trying kimchi burritos. Look very promising, though I acknowledge that kimchi is a polarizing ingredient.
  
• Poblano and mushroom tacos.
  
• Shakshuka. SO GOOD!
  
• Fennel chickpea couscous.
  
• Chipotle pesto.

Books. Has he/she mentioned a cookbook or food reference book lately that he/she wants? Good cookbooks are awesome as gifts, since most cooks don't often have time to make it into a bookstore. Just as long as you get a good one (no Rachael Ray or Sandra Lee bullshit).

If your chef friend doesn't already have one of these books, any of these are a good gift:

Food Lover's Companion

On Food and Cooking

River Cottage Cookbook

French Laundry Cookbook

Also awesome, a subscription to Lucky Peach magazine.

What kind of restaurant/cuisine does your friend cook for? I have suggestions for more cookbooks if you want, but a little bit more information would be helpful.

Edit: Forgot to mention Art Culinaire, a hardback quarterly for chefs and cooks.

Exactly. Higher pH denatures the proteins that are responsible for making it stick. Also, using older eggs will do the trick because older eggs naturally start to rise in pH.

If anyone is interested, there is a really great chapter about eggs in "On Food and Cooking," by Harold McGee that talks a lot about this kind of stuff. It's a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the science of cooking.

You poor thing. I laughed so hard reading this. Bless him for trying.

Tell him tastes are subjective. Tell him that something he can eat and love... Might not be a hit with everyone.

Then, buy this book for him. Tell him you want to encourage him learning to cook new and different things. Tell him it was recommended by a chef.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Recipes-Anniversary/dp/0764578650

I applaud your giving his terrible cooking a chance. You are very sweet and must really care about him. Help him learn to cook, subtly. And watch Good Eats with him. He will learn a lot, and stop sucking at cooking to boot.

If you haven't read/studied [Harold McGee] (https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537944622&sr=8-1&keywords=on+food+and+cooking+harold+mcgee), that'll set you up with a solid foundation for knowledge.

As for skills, that's on you to practice. Definitely subscribe to quality content from quality sources that help keep the passion alive and learn from that. Buzzfeed Tasty is probably the best way to injure yourself over mediocre slop if you were to mimic them (Although I think I've seen one set of hands use a knife safe and proper.)

Lately, I've very much been enjoying Kenji's The Food Lab. I think it's worth the (ebook) price just for the chapter on fried foods.

I also keep coming back to The Flavor Bible, which has lists of how to combine ingredients for different cuisines.

If you want a valuable collection of recipes and have $50 to spend, get Cook's Illustrated's The New Best Recipe. It's supplanted The Joy of Cooking on my shelf.

Also, I would mention that Modernist Cuisine at Home is an awesome book. It has some awesome recipes and the techniques they use have helped me in other areas of my cooking.

Also, does your husband have a sous vide? If not, I would ABSOLUTELY start with a sous vide. It's not as gimmicky as some of the other molecular gastronomy things and it has so many applications that it will become a staple in his kitchen as it has mine. I personally love the Anova Sous Vide, I have two of them. If you want to find out more about sous vide (used by Heston at Fat Duck and Thomas Keller at the French Laundry) check out /r/sousvide. Lots of great ideas and techniques just in that sub alone. Hit me up if you have any more questions.

A Thermapen has stepped up my grill game immensely. $100 seems like a lot but I've easily spent that on cheaper thermometers that ultimately weren't very reliable. It's probably overkill for the novice griller but if you ever want to have your in-laws over for steaks or something, you know you gotta be on point.

How To Cook Everything is the book I refer to most. The grilling tips mostly refer to charcoal grilling, but you'll get the gist (medium heat, high heat, etc). Plus, it has a super handy meat doneness chart inside the back cover that shows both USDA recommended temperatures and the If-You-Want-Your-Food-To-Taste-Good temperatures. As for recipes on the web, I generally trust anything by Alton Brown.

I don't have a subscription either but it's also in my favorite cookbook:

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated-Magazine/dp/0936184744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421716625&sr=8-1&keywords=best+recipe

Pan Seared, Oven Roasted, Thick Cut Pork Chops

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
4 bone in rib chops 1/1/12 inch thick
1/2/ teaspoon pepper
1 tbsp oil

dissolve the brown sugar and salt in 6 cups cold water in a gallon size zipper lock plastic bag. Add the pork chops and seal the bag, pressing out as much air as possible. Refrigerate until fully seasoned about 1 hour. Remove the chops from the brine, rinse, and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels. Season the chops with the pepper.

Adjust an oven rack to the lower middle position, place a shallow roasting pan or rimmed baking sheet on the rack, and heat the oven to 450 degrees. When the oven reaches 450 degrees, heat the oil in a heavy bottomed 12 inch skillet over high heat until shimmering. Lay the chops in the skillet and cook until well browned and a nice crust has formed on the surface, about 3 minutes. Turn the chops over with tongs and cook until well browned and a nice crust has formed on the second side, 2 to 3 minutes longer.

Using the tongs, transfer the chops to the preheated pan in the oven. Roast until an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of a chop registers 125 to 127 degrees 8 to 10 minutes turning the chops over once halfway through the cooking time. Transfer the chops to a platter, tent loosely with foil and let rest for 5 minutes. Check the internal temperature; it should register 145 degrees. Serve immediately.

Sweet and Sour Pan Sauce and Bacon

5 ounces bacon
2 shallots
1 garlic clove
4 plum tomatoes
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup dry Marsala
4 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper

Pour off the fat in the skillet used to brown the chops. Place the skillet over medium high heat and cook the bacon until crisp about 6 minutes. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate; pour off all but 1 tbsp of the bacon fat. Reduce the heat to low, add the shallots and sugar, and cook until the shallots are softened, about 1 minute. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Increase the heat to medium high, stir in the tomatoes and vinegar, and scrape the pan bottom with a wooden spoon to loosen the browned bits. Add the Marsala and simmer until reduced by half about 5 minutes. Whisk in the butter, one piece at a time, until melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This book is fabulous! In it they tell you a couple of methods they tried while making a recipe and why they decided a method worked best. This is the goto book I would purchase for anyone beginning to cook or looking to improve their cooking. Feel free to msg me if you want further details about the book. https://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744

I highly recommend any cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. They also have a segment on NPR & PBS.

Id try this, which I personally like a lot.

In general, I feel that cook books that explain why they do stuff and what are the essential ingredients to a dish and what is optional ("this dish needs the butter or it won't be smooth, but you can change the seasoning") good for learning how to cook.

For essential skills such as knife grips, how to prepare ingredients, and such, that is easier to learn from someone who knows how to do it. Reading about it isnt quite the same thing.

One of the better video blogs out there, IMO, is Foodwishes, check it out on youtube. He explains very well how you can make the food you want with the ingredients you want.

Looks cheap and space consuming - a unitasker. Personally, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot chef's knife. If you want something to do the same job (and since you mentioned you were trying to save money), go to Goodwill or other thrift store and get a real food processor.

FYI, I also recommend getting a used copy of Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen. You can get it for under $10, and it'll help you avoid redundant or cheap stuff while helping you figure out what you really need. My wife used mine when we set up our gift registry and we were very happy with the results.

Here's what you really want:

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman: pretty much everything you'd like to do as a normal home cook will be in here. Debone a chicken, choose the best meat, veggies, fruits, how to cook every vegetable, fruit or meat you're likely to use, in different ways, with variations. Breakfasts, dinners, deserts, technique, theory. It'll cover about everything you'd want to learn.

If you want to go a bit further into theory:

Ruhlman's Twenty: twenty topics for the home cook to study and learn, with applicable recipes. The basics every interested cook ought to know. Think, Salt, Water, Onion, Acid, Egg, Butter, Dough, Batter, Sugar, Sauce, Vinaigrette, Soup, Sauté, Roast, Braise, Poach, Grill, Fry, Chill.

That'll get you pretty far, I reckon.

I bought my Joy of Cooking as a poor college student. It is now 26 years old, and it will be handy to the kitchen for the rest of our days. Terrific book.

Alton Brown's your man, via TV, the web and the first book, especially. I'm Just Here For The Food is a better teaching book than Joy, though nothing beats Joy's comprehensiveness.

And, IMHO, Julia Child is the woman, though I'd recommend her The Way To Cook as the one book to get, if you have to pick one. We actually carry it with us when we travel for Thanksgiving. I was going to leave our copy at the in-laws, but my wife didn't want to part with it, even though I was going to order another one. Mrs. Child considered it her magnum opus, and she designed it carefully to teach someone how to cook.

What everyone says about 'just try it' and 'tweak your recipes' is true. Practice is where it's at, but informed practice will get you where you want to go much more quickly.

Happy cooking and Bon Appetit!

Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything would be an excellent start. It does a great job covering kitchen basics while still having enough depth and detail to keep it useful as you grow as a cook.

If you're more of a visual learner, I'd look into episodes of Alton Brown's Good Eats. It's somewhat whimsical, but is an great resource for learning the hows and whys of cooking.

Some people find youtube helpful, but there is a lot of godawful advice floating around mixed in with the good stuff, and for a novice cook, it can be difficult to tell the difference. Same goes for food blogs and websites.

What you should really do is get comfortable with the basics. How to properly season a piece of beef or fish, and how to actually cook it well.

Do this by trying things out - get a sense of how the meat should look / feel when it's time to flip it, rotate it, let it rest, etc.... Once you have that down, it's just fun to experiment with new things.

This book was actually really interesting, if for no other reason than Alton Brown is informative. Best of luck to you.

Weirdly, I know how to bake (though I can barely boil an egg... I know how to boil water, but my eggs always come out funky for some reason. ugh.). My grandmother taught me. I even know how to leave out ingredients (a lot of the time anyway). So, I guess that is something I can be proud of. My main challenge with baking right now is collecting recipes that I like. Unfortunately, my moderate ability in baking hasn't translated into cooking for me.

I have a cookbook too that I work with, though I am realizing that I don't love it. I suspect that I may have to test out a few books before I find one where I really like the recipes. So far the internet has been more helpful to me than Mr. Bittman... I like allrecipes.com too!

Cajun and Creole are honestly the best foods in the South. This guy mixes them all up with other traditional Southern cuisine. His cookbooks have loads more recipes and better ones in some cases.

http://www.jfolse.com/newfindrecipe.htm

Past that, Charleston Receipts, Charleston Receipts Repeats, 'Pon Top Edisto Cookin' 'Tweenst the Rivers, Sea Island Seasons, and Southern Living cookbooks were a staple in my house. Kind of still are really.

I like Ad Hoc At Home for relatively simple food done very well. It will help teach you to respect good ingredients while opening your eyes to some interesting flavor combinations.

I also have On Food and Cooking, which is dense but will teach you about food so that when you do pick up a "super fancy" recipe you may have a chance of actually understanding what the chef is doing and why.

And, of course, there's Ruhlman's Twenty, which is also very informative but is much more accessible than On Food and Cooking.

What you need to do is two things: First, in all major cities in Germany you can get vegetables delivered weekly directly from a farmer to your home. You pay a set amount of money every week and they send you whatever just finished growing. This way you cook with seasonal goods and you start to eat stuff you wouldn´t normally buy. Second, because you need to know how to cook with vegetables you have never heard of, get this cookbook: Silver Spoon. Its a traditional italian cookbook that covers even the most basic recipes and, more importantly, is sorted by ingredients. Combine both and you will expand your culinary horizon in no time...

My current favourite is quiche in every way imaginable. Start with this:

Get some puff pastry - "Blätterteig" (frozen or refrigerated) and cover the inside of an oven-proof casserole or cake pan. If you got some "Blätterteig" left after that, dont worry, you can use it later...

Now saute some onions, scallions or leek and some bakon cubes and put them in the casserole.

Beat some eggs (3 to 4), add 250 ml cream and one cup (the one you buy them in, not the measurement) creme fraiche, whip that shit, add salt and pepper and some ground nutmeg if you have and pour everything in the casserole.

Now scrape some cheese (Gruyere works best for me) over the casserole and put it in the oven at 180 C until the cheese looks yummy. Let it set and cool for a bit and eat, works best with salad.

In the end it should look something like this

This:
http://www.amazon.com/Cook-Everything-Completely-Revised-Anniversary/dp/0764578650

Any Bittman really. Any time I find myself staring at an ingredient, having no idea what to do (eggplant, turnips, even chicken) he gives a great, simple starter recipe. Get creative from there.

Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen is a fantastic second step. Once you are like "okay, I got down roasted veggies," ATK will class it up for you, with some really great explanations of why they chose to do the recipe they did.

I realize that this doesn't exactly answer your question, but rather than focus on specific recipes, I would suggest that you learn all you can about the various cooking methods. Alton Brown does a nice job disucssing this in his first book, I'm Just Here for the Food. It's a fairly easy read for the basic cook. When you have an understanding of the science behind cooking, or why different foods react the way they do to different cooking methods, you've given your cooking skills a tremendous boost. Other resources I highly recommend are the publications of Cooks Illustrated and anything by Harold McGee.

Instincts are developed by time in the kitchen.

Also, if the stock you're making is hot enough to boil, it's too hot, especially if it's a meat based stock. Once you get the bones above a certain temp, the pores in the bones close up and effective flavor extraction ends. That's why you slowly bring it to a boil, then lightly simmer while skimming.

You need to do some research. I suggest watching every episode of Good Eats, with Alton Brown, that you can. It's corny, but it's a great primer on the basics of a hugely wide variety of foods, food science, techniques, and cuisines over 14 seasons of the show.

Additionally, if you are inclined towards the technical side of things, On Food and Cooking; The Science and Lore of the Kitchen is a fantastic reference manual.

If you like to learn about the science behind your food, I strongly recommend On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee

It's like an encyclopedia full of fascinating facts about food or cooking techniques, and it even manages to be a good read as well.

Consider picking up Alton Brown's "Gear for Your Kitchen".

If you just need to know what the best blank is, try googling whatever item you are looking to buy, followed by the words "cook's illustrated." They rigorusly test and review kitchen gear, and give their recommendations as to the overall best and also the best value.

Here is a list of their "best" cookware.

If you want to elevate your cooking and benefit from very detailed instructions, the two-volume Julia Child "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is a trove of kitchen wisdom from a great culture and down to earth teacher. Look at Youtube videos of her and Jacques Pepin. His books are lovely too, About $60 USD. https://smile.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-French-Cooking-Set/dp/0307593525/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542980651&sr=8-1&keywords=mastering+the+art+of+french+cooking

On Food and Cooking by McGee is the standard and was one of the earliest cookbooks to apply science to cooking. The latest version is excellent. It reads at times like a textbook but I swear that I've learned something useful from every single chapter in that book. I mostly use this as a reference now but well worth skimming if you enjoy science + cooking.

with a family like that, I'd probably just say fuck it -- lock your doors, turn off the lights, and leave a couple pizzas with a few bags of coal out on your front porch. lol

for what it's worth, Cooks Illustrated "New Best Recipes" is pretty much the most reliable cookbook I've ever owned and can be had used pretty cheap -- http://www.amazon.com/Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated-Magazine/dp/0936184744. the recipes in there have never failed me, and they take the time to actually teach you why you're doing things certain ways.

Are you (or your SO) interested in cooking? You might consider Modernist Cuisine at Home. It's very cool, informative, geeky and beautiful.

Also, you might want to check out Edward Tufte's books (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information; Envisioning Information; Beautiful Evidence) to see if they are of interest to you.

It might not sound like it makes sense what BaconGiveMeALardon said, but it's true. If you can get your hands on Modernist Cuisine then you can read more about cooking with woks. To sum it up, you need a lot of heat all the time. The Veggies on the bottom cook really fast, as soon as they are in contact with the metal. If you aren't careful, you can burn the food easily. That's why wok cookers always toss the food in the air, that way the hot steam also cooks the veggies higher up while at the same time not letting those on the bottom burn. Here's a pic I found from the book detailing the way a wok cooks food. You have to basically heat up the skillet to around 750 °C / 1400 F, and for that you need a flame 25 times more powerful than a typical home appliance can offer.

For a long time I tried to figure out a way to get wok cooking done at home. I thought of buying a portable wok cooking system hooked up to a propane tank. That was too much of a hassle, though. I will have to enjoy woked meals in restaurants, I suppose.

How beginner are we talking, and how hard do you want to jump in?

Artscroll's The Kosher Kitchen is a great overview and breakdown of the complex halachos involved. Here is the CRC's guide for kashering a kitchen. You can also get in touch with you local Chabad, and they'll usually be happy to come out and kasher everything for you.

If you're tight for space, it might be best to pick a gender to preference. I'm lactose intolerant, so when I was short on space, I only had a few dairy utensils and everything else was meat. Once everything is kashered, it's much easier.

Once you master a set of basic skills, as well as understanding how things "should" be, everything becomes way more fun and easy. How to dice an onion or anything. How to keep a clean work area. What "brown" actually looks like. How thick is "thickened", and what the hell is a roux.

Also, being a total Geek, The New Best Recipes cookbook has been a major help. It tells you both why you're doing it, as well as how to cook basic items, and then take that skill to other recipes.

On Food and Cooking is pretty popular when it comes to understanding the transformations that foods undergo. It's not a cookbook per se but it's pretty heavy on the science of stuff. I used it as a sole resource for a short paper I wrote in eggs a couple semesters back. It might not be the most enjoyable read but it sure is informative.

There is a cookbook called The New Best Recipe that has lots of amazing recipes. Also, they tell you all the different versions of each recipe they tried and why their certain recipe works best.

America's Test Kitchen cookbooks are great about this. They have recipes with explanations for why you cook certain parts to get the desired effects, and how you might alter cooking methods to get different textures or whatever. Often, they give sidenotes about how to get basic elements cooked perfectly. Highly recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated-Magazine/dp/0936184744

Cook's Illustrated: New Best Recipe

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0936184744/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The people who wrote this book not only give very detailed instructions, but they also tell you what they have tried and what didn't work. That way, you not only have better knowledge of the recipe, but it helps you learn how to better improvise.

Also, the recipes are amazing. A+++++++, would buy again and again.

You don't need to, but it can come in handy. If you are interested in what goes on under the lid, get this book. Truly breathtaking photography, great writing and all the information you'll ever need.

This looks like an awesome book! It's in the hardcover paperback list. Thanks, and I hope everything has gone well!

Seriously? Fuck ramen.

Learning how to cook will serve you well for the rest of your life. Better nutrition, less money, better taste, and everybody loves good food.

Get a copy of The Joy of Cooking for a compendium of awesome and some Alton, Brown, Books, to learn what equipment you need and how to cook.

(Commas to annoy Nazi's and show there are multiple links)

If you really want to learn the details of what cooks do and why, I strongly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012, it is, IMHO, the cooking bible.

The Food Lab is also a good resource and there are lots of videos: http://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab

Other than what the others have suggested (Jacques Pepin, Alton Brown's "Good Eats"), I would also recommend to watch Julia Child's videos (mostly French fare) and Heston Blumenthal's "How to cook like Heston".

If you'd like something similar, but which doesn't cost 600 dollars or weigh 40 lbs, try On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee.

Edit: honestly, reading the review of this new book sounds just like reading a review of the book I linked, but 1/20th the price and 1/3 the pages. This guy must use some huge typefaces or something. I'm sure there's more content in this new one, but try out the McGee book first, it's probably more than enough for anyone, unless you're looking to spend tens of thousands on expensive modern equipment or something.

I highly recommend "The New Best Recipe". It applies a laboratory method to cooking and, backed by America's Test Kitchen, they almost always vet their recipes thoroughly. It's also fun to read when you're not cooking, so that's a major plus.

But to get the best grip on everything, try "Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking".

These two tomes will have you a pro about the kitchen in no time.

Alton Brown for my husband. He loves this guy! Would love to add more books to his collection!

Thanks for the contest :-)

I really like Vegan for Life. It has lots of up-to-date nutritional information, and no pseudoscience. If you want a great general cookbook, I love How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. It's just a great starter cookbook with lots of info on prep, etc.

If you would like to learn about the science behind cooking and a lot of neat pictures to learn just about everything about cooking I would recommend Modernist Cuisine. You can probably pick up a copy of the whole set for pretty cheap used. It covers pretty much everything you can imagine.

http://modernistcuisine.com/


http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-Home-Nathan-Myhrvold/dp/0982761015

I can tell you about the preheat thing anyway.

1: food safety. Ovens take time to heat, so your food will be sitting in the danger zone a long time if you put it in when you first start the oven.

2: If your food is heating up as the oven heats up, by the time the oven is to temperature and browning the outside of your food, the food is well and truly overcooked. Food usually needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of somewhere between 140 and 180 Fahrenheit. Now if 150 is your target temp, imagine what your food will be like if it's 350!

As for a go-to book for learning everything about cooking, here you go:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Recipes-Anniversary/dp/0764578650

The first... 20 or so pages answer all your basic cooking questions, then you have like 900 pages of in-depth, detailed recipes, explaining the techniques, variations, and expectations of, well, everything.

To be totally honest though, I just google my questions as they come up at this point.

Good for you!

A few cook books I would recommend are compendium types. They are not good for keto, but they have recipes for everything, so if you don't have experience, you can find lots of possibilities.

The Joy of Cooking

How to Cook Everything

The Good Eats Compendiums 1, 2, & 3.

And we use Cooks Illustrated magazine more than anything.

hopefully i don't sound too crass, but i would save your money. unless you want to do months of work as an unpaid, or basically unpaid, stage at a really amazing restaurant, or want to have credentials to back up the opening of your own place, the extra education wouldn't help much. i'd rather hear that you've read harold mcgee and larousse cover to cover.

If she likes classic cooking, you can get a nice hardcover set of both of Julia Childs "The Art of French Cooking" cookbooks for around $60, i believe. That plus a great cast iron pan and maybe some spices that are a bit of a splurge (think saffron and vanilla bean) would be a great cooking themed gift!

Like I said, if your just doing this at home then don't worry about it. But if you want to be the best cook you can be (and why wouldn't you) then following the tiny rules and suggestion adds up to a better, more consistent product.

That said, what your saying is not totally correct, the comment I linked is about there being no reason to ever salt them before they go into the pan and that since the water retention is higher, the eggs will cook faster allowing you make your eggs actually lighter and fluffier because you can reduce the time the eggs spend on the burner. Infact the comment directly stated that its better for omelette (really it's just better for everything). OPs omelettes are tough because their heat is too low, although that's not what the top comment is saying.

Source: I've made thousands of omelettes and thousands more different egg dishes. I do the best I can.

Infact talking about this so much made me make myself one just to make sure I wasn't getting something wrong and, it was a damn fine omelette. Little hole in the middle but you just serve that side down on the plate :)

Second source : I own the book, everyone should own this book.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684800012/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511870140&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=on+food+and+cooking+harold+mcgee

I would recommend Modernist Cuisine at Home to anyone looking into a scientific approach to cooking without a second thought it is absolutely fantastic.

The full version of Modernist Cuisine is wonderful and interesting and I would say only about 15% of the recipes can be recreated using a standard home kitchen. If you're looking for practicality and recipes you can make yourself with a more scientific approach I would go with Modernist Cuisine at Home but if someone wants to know the ENTIRE in depth science(and history) behind the dishes Modernist Cuisine is the best.

Personal bias, but I would pick a good cooking technique or cookbook. For example Complete Techniques is a very good technique book if you don't have it. Otherwise Joy of Cooking or How to Cook Everything are both good cookbooks to have.

I had actually read about this in the book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. It's a great book (and a nice gift idea!) and may answer your future food-related questions. :)

Julia Child, The Way to Cook. My husband got it for me shortly after we got married, when I was already a pretty serious cook. Now that was about 25 years ago. Man did that book ever up my game. And also forced me to unlearn some things I had been doing that just didn't work out well. How I wished I had had the book all along. Of course, it was only recently published. I still use it fairly often, for desserts and other stuff I don't make frequently enough to have down pat.

It's definitely not a collection of recipes. Though she has chapters on soups, fish, fowl, meat, and so on the recipes are grouped by technique. She shows you how to make some dish or other as a "master recipe" then gives variations on it using the same technique but with different meat or what have you.



>Teaching is so important to the object of this book that it is one of the very few books I know which could easily serve as a good textbook for a course on cooking.


I could hve written this one:
>If you just have but 1 cookbook, this should be the one. Her recipes show you how and in a flawless manner. This is about the basics, techniques, etc. Many of my basic cooking skills and go to recipes are from this book

Boiling the potatoes whole is the only way to make mashed potatoes. It traps in all the flavor and prevents the potatoes from getting all water logged. I read in The New Best Recipe cookbook (which I totally recommend cause they have experimented with foods and found the absolutely best way to cook most standard dishes), I've never peeled a raw potato since!

Pot
Frying Pan
Strainer
Baking Dish
Can Opener
Wooden Spoon
Mixing Spoon
Microwave
Turner
Cutting Board
Chef's Knife
Paring Knife
*Measuring Spoons/Measuring Cups

I also highly recommend How to Cook Everything. It is a great resource and actually discusses this exact topic. He gives basic and advanced cooking instruction and tips. Great book.

I dig you're enthusiasm but you're asking a broad question!

I'd recommend the following books to help answer your questions:

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of The Kitchen

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684800012

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking through Science

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393081087

I currently work 2 jobs and have my fingers in a lot of pies.

That being said, I still find the time to cook. Not as much as I like, but I do so quite regularly.

Aside from reading cook books, watching Good Eats, and America's Test Kitchen, I got the most experience from practice.

I also visit these subreddits.

http://www.reddit.com/r/cooking

http://www.reddit.com/r/askculinary

Book wise, I have quite a few books on both technique and the food itself.

A few of my favorites are:

On Food and Cooking by McGee - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684800012

Cooking for Geeks by Potter - http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Geeks-Science-Great-Hacks/dp/0596805888/

How to Cook Everything by Bittman - http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Completely-Revised-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0764578650

and a multitude of others.

Harold McGee is like the master of knowledge of all things cooking.

If you found this interesting, check out his book On Food and Cooking

it’s basically an encyclopedia of the science behind cooking. One of my favorite books. And a James Beard award winner

DO NOT buy one of those "kitchen in a box" starter kits for $99. You will only learn how to burn things because the steel is so thin! You will end up years from now either donating them all to Goodwill or using them only to boil water. Buy one nice pan every month or two and you will never regret it.

Required Reading For New Cooks:

• Alton Brown: I'm Just Here for the Food Not only teaches you the kitchen basics, but the science behind why it is so.
  
• Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen Not just gear, it also has some recipes :)
  
  Happy cooking!

Don't discount your problem, it's a big one. We can't survive as vegetarians/vegans if we're unhappy. I can tell you for certain though the longer you are a vegetarian the less you crave meat. I've been vegetarian for 10 years, and have absolutely no interest in meat anymore. Here's my suggestion, don't go cold tofurkey (see what I did there?) Try to cut a different meat out of your diet every two weeks or even every month. As you do that, also try to slowly phase non-meat dishes into your diet. I think you'll find that by taking it step by step it isn't as hard as you'd expect.

Moving onto the cooking part of your question, I recommend just giving it a try. There are few better feelings than eating a meal that you cooked. You savor the flavors that much more because you cooked it. Again, it will be tough at first, but if you can trust me, cooking can quickly become a fulfilling part of your life. You can also transition into this as you transition out of meat. Instead of immediately jumping to cooking every night, you can cook maybe once a week. If you for instance choose to cut chicken out of your diet first, eat with your parents unless they're eating chicken and on that night prepare something yourself. There are a ton of good cookbooks that teach you some basic skills instead of just telling you recipies. Others on here can suggest some, but my personal recommendation is How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

In short, I know it's tough. Don't discredit how tough it will be. However, I have faith that with a bit of time and a bit of work you'll be so very happy you made the leap.

If you want just one:

The New Best Recipe:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744

Will teach all manner of things.

Skip the Flavor Bible until (maybe) later. Ruhlman's 20 is good for beginners (and everyone).

Unless you're looking to learn BAKING... I'd say just cook little bits of things as you'd like and taste 'em. "What do two thin slices of baked red pepper taste like?" "What's a pork chop taste like plain at 165 degrees?" Start with very few ingredients and get to know them and what they DO. Eat raw garlic, seared garlic, and roasted garlic. Same with onion. Same with ginger.

For books go with the sciency ones. People who explain the why and the how.

Might I suggest an alternative method? In my experience, the study of the techniques to cooking are at least half the battle in laying a foundation for a good culinary education. Rather than take the direct simple-to-complex recipe route, perhaps there is value in utilizing a hybrid method of learning where the recipes are centered around the use of particular skills in the kitchen. Some useful materials that come to mind are "Complete Techniques" by Jacques Pepin or "The Way to Cook" by Julia Child. Once these types of technical skills are engrained in your cooking process, you will find the true joy of cooking which is much less about following instructions and more to do with finding your "culinary groove".

I haven't read that one but I do have On Food and Cooking. I got it for my girlfriend who is a chem grad student and loves to cook. It's a really excellent reference book.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0936184744/

The New Best Recipe is one I don't see recommended as often, but explains the process they went through to get the recipe they ended up with. Everything I've made from it has been delicious, and it explains things very clearly.

There is a fantastic cookbook out there called How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. That, for me, is the perfect collection of simple, delicious, good, recipes. No fuss, no trendy stuff, no over-anything. Just really good information and advice on how to cook... everything.

If a cookbook isn't in the budget, PM me, and I'll send you a copy.

Mollie Katzen's The New Moosewood Cookbook. Great little pictures of ingredients/recipes.

The Joy of Cooking. It's got a great baseline of knowledge and can provide a good context when you start cooking.

The Mennonite cookbook More with Less. This one will broaden your horizons and you'll find yourself cooking outside of your typical cuisines.

It's not bro-science, it's the chemistry of cooking.

A good book on cooking and it's benefits is Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham.

This is from Chapter 3: The Energy Theory of Cooking, page 65
>Denaturation occurs when the internal bonds of a protein weaken, causing the molecule to open up. As a result, the protein molecule loses its original three-dimensional structure and therefore its natural biological function. The gastroenterologists noted the heat predictably denatures proteins, and that denatured protein are more digestible because their open structure exposes them to the action of digestive enzymes.

The gastroenterologists (digestive system scientists) mentioned here were specifically looking at egg protein digestion. On the preceding page of the above quote, these guys found that cooking egg whites increases the bio-availability of the protein by 40%.

Davies, et al. found that the protein in beef was 4 times more digestible when heated to 95^0 C for 20 minutes.

Another really good book on the effects and benefits of cooking is On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee

As far as links, I don't really have any. But the Wikipedia pages on denaturation, cooking, and protein are all good places to start.

Any of the Moosewood Cookbooks are awesome picks. They were all copies that were originally hand written/drawn and look awesome inside, and from what I remember the recipes were all vegetarian.

continued

Homemade Soda by Andrew Schloss

Mix Shake Stir: Recipes from Danny Meyer's Acclaimed New York City Restaurants compiled by Danny Meyer

Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2010 by Jim Murray

And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails by Wayne Curtis

Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide, Revised by Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron

Great Beer Guide: 500 Classic Brews by Michael Jackson

Old Mr. Boston DeLuxe Official Bartender's Guide 4th Edition

The Seasonal Cocktail Companion: 100 Recipes and Projects for Four Seasons of Drinking by Maggie Savarino

The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Perfect Drinks by Dale Degroff

Iconic Spirits: An Intoxicating History by Mark Spivak

Bottom Row:

The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil

Absinthe, Sip of Seduction: A Contemporary Guide by Betina Wittels & Robert Hermesch

The Complete Bartender: Art of Mixing Plain and Fancy Drinks by Albert Barnes (Espresso Book Machine Reprint)

Michael Jackson's Beer Companion by Michael Jackson

The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks by Amy Stewart

Food & Wine Cocktails 2013 edited by Jim Meehan

Food & Wine Cocktails 2012 edited by Jim Meehan

Food & Wine Cocktails 2011 edited by Jim Meehan

The Craft of the Cocktail: Everything You Need to Know to be a Master Bartender, with 500 Recipes by Dale DeGroff

Cocktail Techniques by Kazuo Uyeda

Shake, Stir, Pour: Fresh Homegrown Cocktails by Katie Loeb

Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis by Kingsley Amis

Tequila: A Traditional Art of Mexico edited by Alberto Ruy Sanchez & Magarita de Orellana

The New York Times Book of Wine: More than 30 Years of Vintage Writing edited by Howard G. Goldberg (pre-release copy)

The Northern California Craft Beer Guide by Ken Weaver

A Field Guide to Hendrick's Gin

The Oxford Companion to Beer edited by Garrett Oliver

The Book of Gin: A Spirited World History from Alchemists' Stills and Colonial Outposts to Gin Palaces, Bathtub Gin, and Artisanal Cocktails by Richard Barnett (pre-release copy)

Modern American Drinks: How to Mix and Serve All Kinds of Cups, Cocktails, and Fancy Mixed Drinks by George J. Kappeler (Espresso Book Machine Printing)

Edible Cocktails: From Garden to Glass - Seasonal Cocktails with a Fresh Twist by Natalie Bovis

Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail by William Grimes

Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World's Craft Brewing Revolution by Joshua M. Bernstein

The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock

Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast's Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home by Sam Calagione

Wine for Dummies by Ed McCarthy & Mary Ewing-Mulligan

Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass by Randy Mosher

Not Pictured:

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee

Craft Cocktails at Home: Offbeat Techniques, Contemporary Crowd-Pleasers, and Classics Hacked with Science by Kevin Liu

Beachbum Berry Remixed by Jeff Berry

How's Your Drink?: Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well by Eric Felten

Let me know if you have any questions about any of the books.

Cook here. If you're interested in getting better at cooking in general, the best thing you can do is buy a beginner's cookbook that lays out proper technique for the average joe, and follow the recipes. My personal favorite remains Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, as it is very no-nonsense, economical, accessible to even the most inexperienced cook, and explains every cooking technique necessary to make each recipe. Really couldn't recommend it more. It's how I got started.


As for chicken, I posted this recipe elsewhere in the thread, maybe give it a try.

Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is easily the best book to learn French cooking. It has very thorough instructions for techniques, authentic recipes, adapted for the American kitchen.

I also recommend Larousse Gastronomique,
Escoffier and
Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques.

You mentioned that you prefer recipes that are simple and not too time consuming. The problem with that is, most authentic French cooking is time-consuming and laborious. This is why it is so delicious and intricate. However, I do have one cookbook that I don't use too much anymore, but it features great recipes that are fairly quick and accessible.

Im not an expert but I would say poor ventilation is your issue. The humidity in ovens seem to very greatly. From what I have experienced, electric ovens tend to be completely dry, whereas propane or natural gas ovens have that little bit of humidity present. Gas ovens usually have those ports on the bottom on each side right above the burners and the vent is usually located in the back above the racks.

Also, I've seen better results with these ovens when cooking on a much higher heat.

Humidity is vital in bread baking for browning and crisping as well as other aspects of baking. There is a good book you can get that would it explain it in a more scientific way.

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012

The New Best Recipe from Cook's Illustrated is positively fantastic. It's my bible for how to cook everything. The biggest thing to me is each recipe has an in-depth explanation for how they came up with the recipe, how they tested it, what works, and why.

> When you first make the switch to homemade food, you begin to appreciate bitter flavors.

I would argue that you don't appreciate the bitter flavors, you just become tolerant. The real problem outstanding for all of this is that processed food just tastes way better, with a small nod to the neuro effects of simple carbohydrates. It's a problem without any great solutions. I think the only real success we'll have in the long term is just improving the nutritional quality of processed food while maintaining the tricks learned in the past to actually get people to eat the darn stuff. We're never going to make any progress telling people to eat the "healthy" stuff that typically costs more, takes longer to prepare, and absolutely tastes inferior (ever tried whole wheat pancakes?). We've tried preaching to consumers for decades and it has done nothing to slow the obesity epidemic.

I digress a little but basically I don't mind when people choose not to consume more processed food, my issue is when they get a huge chip on their shoulder and rant about how gross it is, but they are simply incorrect. There is a lot of interesting discussion about this subject in Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Great books that reads a lot like a science text book on food.

Edit:links

Tools: another knife, or a end-grain cutting board. Digital scales are always handy. Pressure cookers can be had for under $100 and a water circulator (sous vide machine) will fall slightly above that price range.

Ingredients: Foie gras makes a good gift. I would be delighted to get some high-end pork product. for a gift.

Books: Modernist Cuisine at Home is as much a book as it is a reference guide and set of projects. On Food and Cooking is an essential book for food nerds.

I haven't looked at a lot of alternatives, but I bought Into the Vietnamese Kitchen on a whim and haven't been disappointed. Well written and has nice pictures, each recipe has some backstory about its place in Vietnamese cuisine and culture.

For Italian cuisine, The Silver Spoon is often recommended as a cornerstone of Italian cooking, but I found it to be pretty unsatisfying, at least in the translation. Light on technique and a lot of recipes that may be authentic, but aren't something you're ever likely to make (assuming you can even find the ingredients).

I like the idea of being a weekday vegetarian, or at least making sure that meat dishes are special enough to remember. I first heard of that idea from a TED talk by the founder of Treehugger. Anyway, that talk got me to get Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and it's looking like it's got some good recipes. Bittman, opens by saying he's not trying to tell anybody what to eat. I like his idea of not having to have one "main" dish, but rather to have several savory vegetable dishes that compliment each other.

It's a pretty large book (6 volumes, ~300 pages each) and thus the chapter on food safety is itself pretty extensive.

Long story short, there are ways to calculate the remaining proportion of bacteria relative to initial amounts. A 6.5D reduction means there are 1/10^6.5 times the amount of bacteria in the item after cooking, a number which is considered safe.

FDA cooking temperatures and times disregard that, and instead specify temperatures that are way too high, leading to dry and bland meats.

Screenshot of a relevant graph. The grey line is the 6.5D threshold.

If you want, the book is available on Amazon or on more "shady" websites.

Not trying to discredit you at all, I’m just taking to opportunity to spread the history of my little pocket of the world. Charleston and LA are actually much more similar than you’d expect food wise! Both areas have heavy European/French influence, but Charleston is also intertwined with the Gullah culture which is a very specific niche of Creole. I mostly see sauces with that brown gravy or a French white wine and cream sauce being used here.

Edit: If anybody see this and has interest in learning more about the history of cooking in Charleston/the Lowcountry I’d recommend picking up a copy of the Charleston Receipts Cook Book. It has a ton of recipes that are hundreds of years old!

get Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen. It explains what's good and why, what you shouldn't get and why, and what you need depending on what you cook. That and it's an excellent read, Alton has a great way of writing.

I love the Jerk Seasoning blend from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. In the book he recommends adding fresh garlic and ginger prior to use, but I don't have time for that shit so I just use the supermarket powdered versions. I triple his recipe and make it about once every three weeks.

Cooking with it: put 1-2 tablespoons per pound of bite-sized chicken in a plastic bag, shake, and let marinate for 3 to 24 hours. Pan fry with butter, then deglaze with chicken stock, or wine, or whatever, add more butter, and BAM. You have amazing jerk chicken with an amazing sauce. Or toss it in rice. Or toss it on veggies (great with broccoli). Or eat it plain. Whatever!

• 1 tsp (or a tiny bit less) ground nutmeg
  
  
• 1 tbs ground black pepper
  
  
• 1 tbs cayenne
  
  
• 1 tbs powdered garlic
  
  
• 2 tbs powdered allspice
  
  
• 2 tbs ground ginger
  
  
• 2 tbs dried thyme (it says to use a mortar and pestle on the thyme, but it works fine if you don't)
  
  
• 3 tbs paprika
  
  
• 3 tbs sugar
  
  
• 6 tbs salt
  
  This makes about 1 & 1/3 cups of seasoning, keep it in a mason jar or a zip lock bag. Lasts for weeks and is suuuuper easy to cook with.

make pastor tacos, it easy as hell and extremely tasty. Artichokes are also very easy. Roasted cauliflower is easy and tasty. My favorite cook book is mark bitmins 'how to cook everything'. It is great for people starting to cook, every recipe has lot of details and even substations for stuff, he talk about tastes and more.
heres a link: http://www.amazon.com/Cook-Everything-Completely-Revised-Anniversary/dp/0764578650/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320011362&sr=1-1

Yes, AB's books are excellent. I own his first 2 books and they are excellent for learning technique.

I'm Just Here For The Food
http://www.amazon.com/Im-Just-Here-Food-Cooking/dp/1584790830/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404671790&sr=1-2&keywords=i%27m+just+here+for+the+food

I'm Just Here For More Food
http://www.amazon.com/Im-Just-Here-More-Food/dp/1584793414/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404671790&sr=1-3&keywords=i%27m+just+here+for+the+food