What Makes My Wife So Bad at Cooking?

A few weeks ago, my wife Bree made dinner, was disappointed by the way it came out, and suggested that I should watch her cook on her own, take notes with no intervention, and make a video about what I would have done differently. Keep that in mind as you soak in 5 minutes of unadulterated criticism of someone else’s work. This was her idea! Roll the tape… First things first, she’s off to a great start wearing a Barkley brand apron. She’s chosen a pasta recipe that I’ll show on-screen, and this is interesting. She doesn’t eat much meat, and she’s chosen a vegan recipe even though she’ll be swapping the non-dairy ingredients for butter and cream. I asked her why she did this, and she said it’s because omnivorous recipes might rely on the meat itself to provide most of the flavor, whereas she trusts the vegans to maximize flavor without animal products, even though she isn’t a vegan herself. I can’t speak to the truth of that in my own experience, but I will say this recipe isn’t one I would like. It’s written too casually for my tastes, probably so that beginners feel comfortable, but it’s imprecise and it reads to me as unserious. It’s not usually a good sign when someone gives you a time, like bake for 15 minutes, without also providing a sensory signal like “until golden brown” or “until the interior temperature reaches 145” or “until the center is no longer wet”. Plus, this web page just randomly refreshes itself every couple minutes on the ipad, making you lose your spot on the page. I don’t need to comment on the knife skills to be honest, let he who can mince a perfect chive cast the first stone, but I do need to comment on how often she keeps resting tools on the hot pan, especially for someone who’s married to a dadgum spoon rest salesman! I general, I’m noticing that Bree will complete a task without knowing, noticing, or remembering that there’s a better tool for the job: like using a giant strainer that doesn’t fit inside the pot instead of a small and nimble wire spider. Like using a pan instead of a dadgum spoon rest, again! As much as I’d love to believe that anyone can cook with any number of tools and no need to upgrade the old ones, it does help to have and be aware of special purpose implements. The first note I’m making that might apply to all of you is that she seems to choose a burner arbitrarily. Notice how the water that only needs to simmer is on the biggest most powerful burner, but the garlic that needs to sizzle with vigor is on the small burner. The garlic bits in the center of the pan are pan-frying but the pieces out on the edge are barely getting any heat. This has more of an affect on your cooking skill than most people realize, but look at how frequently she’s moving in a way that looks cramped, inhibited, or restricted. The dogs are in the kitchen, weaving between her legs and blocking her path. People who are good at cooking don’t want people in the way restricting their movements, much less puppies underfoot. If it were me, I’d put ‘em ’in a different room. Within that same movement issue I’m talking about, she’s using the smallest cutting board we have, so it’s not a graceful confident action of cutting a broccoli floret and moving it to the side, but rather a cautious anxious action of trying to make room on the board without dropping the goods onto the countertop. An open hand could have directed all this broccoli into the pan in one swoop, but because she’s wielding a sharp knife, she’s making short imprecise motions that introduce unease and inefficiency. I didn’t previously explicitly notice how good cooking usually looks in the home: reaching for something in one motion because you know where it is… Putting something in your locus of focus for one moment, then decisively moving it out of mind at just the right mental distance to know when to check back in on it. I don’t wanna act like you have to have all your ingredients mise’d out like a proper cook on the line, but knowing what you’ll need and where it’ll all be is always gonna help. And to be fair, I know it to be true in my heart of hearts that cooking in front of the lens is significantly more difficult than doing so without a camera in the room. You feel like you can’t make a mistake, and then when you do make one, like forgetting to chop the broccoli into smaller pieces before adding it to the sauce, you might panic trying to save face in the least embarrassing way possible, despite the video evidence of cream dripping all over the floor. Hey look, maybe it is a good idea to have dogs in the kitchen! There’s a moment around this point where it became clear that sometimes you can be lucky, and it’s just as good as being skilled. Bree made too much broth out of BTB concentrate, so there was too much liquid in the pan. She compensated by reducing the broth, which thus concentrates the salt in said broth. At the end, she added a bunch of parm to the dish without tasting it first, which could have taken the salt levels even higher, into the zone of inedibility. But because she grossly undersalted the water in which she boiled the pasta, the salt levels ended up fine. I don’t wanna make it seem as though the only good choices were made by luck, though. She was right to stir the pasta in the simmering sauce for a good two minutes to ensure that the sauce thickens from starch and clings to the noodle, rather than making a loose pool of garlicky cream in the plate. She even tried to get some height on the plate, without me having to remind her of the principals within my plating videos. In the end, we’re left with a dish that tastes good and will be eaten in its entirety. It’s not a recipe that I would make, (edamame and broccoli with pasta in cream sauce isn’t exactly my type of comfort food), but it’s not a dish I’d be disappointed to see on the table. Because I was asked to list every aspect I’d do differently, here it is: I’d click “print recipe” on any website, so I’m able to read the text without ads popping up I’d buy the pre-shelled edamame, or at the very least, squeeze these out more efficiently. That part took way too long. I’d cut the broccoli much smaller, then blanche it for just a few seconds to make it bright green. When it’s time to boil water, I’ll crank the burner to the max. There’s no real sense in dialing it to 75 or 80% I wouldn’t use this garlic clove, with the green in the middle I’d put my hot water in a mixing cup

or a mug, so that after I dissolve the broth concentrate, I’m able to hold it in my hand I would never strain out all the pasta water, since you might need it to dial in the sauce, And finally, I’d use the damn spoon rests, since we have a dozen of ‘em. But I didn’t cook this meal. I ate it! My only job in that case is to give a thumbs up with a full mouth. Maybe you cook like my wife and noticed a thing or two you could improve. But even if you don’t cook, you might have enjoyed the understated sneaky peek into how I come up with video ideas. When I pay attention to the pain points of a begintermediate cook, I notice the under-represented questions nobody seems to answer, like “what does medium heat even mean”. Think of all the video concepts I can explore based on this lunch alone: How to pick a recipe, which parts of a recipe can you ignore, is your kitchen too small or is it just your cutting board? But for now, with regards to THIS video, the lessons you should walk away with are threefold: Try to cook with an awareness of and confidence in the physicality of it all, choose well-written recipes you follow with intent, and if your Valentines Day plans involve someone else cooking for you, keep the critique to yourself. You can bust out the notebook in March. Helix has paid to be mentioned at the end of this video. Helix offers 20 unique mattresses to choose from, so they offer a sleep solution for just about everyone. My current chariot to dreamland is the Helix Midnight Lux with the Glaciotex cooling cover. It's the model that won best mattress overall on Forbes and Wired. And it's also the one I got matched with according to the way that I sleep. And if for some reason you feel like you're just not in the market for a whole new mattress, Helix just launched a variety of mattress toppers. Toppers are a great choice for someone who wants to upgrade their comfort without buying a whole new mattress. For someone who feels like their mattress is getting old but wants to extend its lifespan, for someone who wants to improve their spare guest bed, or someone who wants to sleep cooler by choosing a topper with Glaciotex cooling technology. US shipping is free and the mattresses come with a lifetime warranty. Plus, you get a 120 night trial to ensure that you love it. At the time of posting, there is a big President's Day sale with a big discount using my personalized link. It's on the screen, but it's also linked down below in the description, so you can get there in one tap or one click. Good night. Sleep kite.