Random Post 1

Some people make meals to survive, others order Uber Eats, but I cook because I love making food and constantly challenging my culinary skills. I enjoy having a finite amount of ingredients and using them to make a delicious meal for my friends, family, and myself. 

Do you ever have a craving in your mouth that you absolutely need to have? Maybe an amazing burrito you had last week. Maybe a family dish you haven’t had in years. I have that all the time, and because of that, I often think about different meals I want to prepare, what steps need to be taken, what ingredients I should use, and (of course) how it is going to taste. This process is fun for me because I work out what foods work with each other in my head and plan out what kind of flavor I want to make. Sometimes it is savory, sometimes it is sweet, but regardless of what flavor it is, it always makes my mouth water. 


As I mentioned before, I think about what ingredients will go well together and what ingredients won’t. Because of this, cooking is a lot like chemistry. Now I know that there are people who are going to panic because they hate chemistry and anything that has to do with the periodic table, but hear me out. Chemistry has elements (ingredients), which are used in everything, like Oxygen and Hydrogen combining to make water. Consider Oxygen to be meat and Hydrogen to be bread and when you combine those ingredients, you have yourself a sandwich. You can use a lot of elements at varying levels to create different compounds, much like you can ingredients to create a stew.


Another aspect of cooking that I love is that ingredients are interchangeable (to an extent). Some of my favorite meals have come from using ingredients that I wouldn’t have initially chosen, but did because I didn’t efficiently stock my kitchen. A lot of people will say “measure with your heart” when you are adding ingredients, and I wholeheartedly agree. There is an art to cooking, and using your heart instead of a measuring cup is what turns an online recipe into a dish you made for yourself. 


When I have a big project deadline and I feel too overwhelmed with my work, I give myself a mental break to relax and cook. I use cooking as a relaxant because I have complete control over what I am making and I know that whatever I make is going to make me feel a lot better. It is enjoying to cook when working on a project because it gives your brain time to sort itself out and come back to the assignment with a fresh mindset. I have often hit walls while working, take an hour break to cook myself some food and take all my focus away from the assignment, and then solve the problem within 10 minutes once I get back to work. 


I always enjoy a new challenge and whenever I start feeling like my menu is becoming a little bland, I go onto Instagram and Tik Tok to find more culinary inspiration. Because of social media, as well as friends around the world, I always have a resource that can encourage me to cook something new. 

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