How to start from zero

      The basics of learning. Yes, “The basics of learning”, not “Learning the basics”.

      If you are like me, you did not know much about cooking, or really eating, growing up. Your parents fed you a steady diet of boxed macaroni and cheese, overly sweet Chinese take-away, McDonald’s salty fries, and pre-packaged double-chocolate muffins, introducing you to the brown leathery patches of prediabetes before the tender age of 15; and when you first moved out to college, you quite nearly set fire to your first apartment because you wanted to try your hand at making your own French fries and you soaked your potatoes before deep-frying them. Your only hope, your only exposure to a food culture was Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain, and that Disney Channel movie wherein an “effeminate” boy and his sports-obsessed father learn how to crack an egg with one hand. —And you marvelled at what people could do with… food. What it was, where it came from, how different it all was. You wanted a bite of it—then whole four-course meals of it—for yourself, even if you had no idea where to start.

      So what are these “basics of learning” as opposed to “learning the basics”? Why not immediately go into how to cook a steak properly so you can impress your father-in-law and win his and his daughter’s hand in marriage?

      First off, if you are like me, you have no background in either cooking or eating, and you really cannot gain a sense of who you are as a cook until you eat more. What is a good cook? He is simply a person who cooks what he likes, well, and if you do not even know what you like, then you cannot ever hope to get started! And would you really sustain yourself, learning, at worst, how to cook things that you hate (for me, celery), or at best, have zero interest in?

      Go out to a restaurant. A fun one, where you would take a girlfriend to for a first casual date. Not fastfood. Order something that interests you. If you like it, try to replicate it. Whether it’s poached eggs on crabcake with hollandaise, Spanish rice and black beans, hot wings, or the perfect garlic french fry, find one dish that makes you passionate, and dedicate yourself to it!