So you want to cook?

I've been away a while - working - and a recent conversation that I overheard (and subsequently joined in) in the cooking section of Barnes & Noble made me write this post.

There were three folks looking at cookbooks this afternoon and I heard one of them mention that he hated cookbooks because they always called for ingredients he didn't have. I heard him say, "I never have fresh thyme and shallots just lying around." His buddy commented to him, "I think you could use some chopped olives for the shallots." This is where I chose to speak up, "Actually, I'd use onions for the shallots - and dried thyme for fresh time. Although, fresh thyme keeps for a while in the fridge." After that all three went back to perusing and I found a book on chocolate I started to leaf through.

As I was walking out I realized to cook - I mean really cook and make good food for yourself - you need to have a couple of things. The most important of all is commitment. I remember when I first started to cook, I had just given my Fiancee Ming Tsai's Simply Ming and I was looking at it saying the same thing, "Man I don't want to have to buy all this stuff!" And for our first couple of forays into this book, we spent some serious cash on spices and stuff I didn't have. But you need to decide that cooking is important to you, your food is important to you, and you'll go get the ingredients you need. Also, you have to have enough patience to make a menu and and use what you bought. I hate buying a cucumber and using half of it, so I'll try to have Seared Tuna with Soba & Cucumber salad within close proximity to Vietnamese Beef Salad (with cucumber). Waste not. For a more pedestrian example, if you like Asian food, ginger, garlic, and scallions are in almost everything! In addition to the will of really WANTING to make good food all the time for yourself, you need these things methinks:

1) A decent knife and honing steel. Get a Global, Shun, Henkel's, or Wustof knife from Williams Sonoma or Kitchen Arts on Newbury Street. A honing steel can be gotten for 20 bucks and will keep it sharp and straight. A good chef's knife - 8" - will cost you close to $100 bucks, but that is all you'll ever need. Ever! My Global's are all 5+ years old and still work great!

2) A decent saute pan and sauce pan. Same places and same deal, get good stainless steel pots and pans, spend some money, take care of them (clean well) and they'll stay with you forever. You may want a non-stick saute pan, but it will take a little bit of extra care (No metal utensils)

3) Most places don't say this, but a good cutting board makes all the difference. Plastic Target ones are great for cutting chicken, fish, or meat. For everything else, get a nice wooden or bamboo one. You'll have to wipe it down with mineral oil every once in a while and you can't put it in the dishwasher, but it will keep your knives sharper, longer, and give you a nice big space to work on. Don't chop garlic on it! It is a pain in the ass to get the smell out of the wood. http://www.johnboos.com/ are great and you'll notice them on the Food Network a lot.

You're ready to cook - now just buy the ingredients and remember these things.

1) You'll always need onions, so just buy the bag. Everything, and I mean everything, starts with onions (shallots, garlic, scallions, and leeks are all part of the onion family) and fat. Olive oil and canola oil are the old stand bys, but butter is the best. Don't use cooking sprays as the lecithin used as a stabilizer creates a gross buildup on your new pots and pans.

2) Just buy the jar of spices! For things like thyme, garlic, salt, cumin, coriander, chili powder, and oregano just buy it. You'll use them eventually and feel free to substitute the dried for the fresh if you have to.

3) Get a account at http://www.chow.com/. There are videos on who to cut an onion, message boards on where to get your knife fixed if you dinged it, and what is a nice place to get some brunch. The people on there can be great resources. I know, because I'm on there.

After you start cooking a little bit, you'll find out what you like and start to cook more of that. I like Asian and southwestern flavors and guess what - they're pretty similar. I got Marcus Samuelson's cookbook on African cuisine, and it was also pretty similar. You'll find out what you can substitute and what you can't and within the first couple of attempts you'll have a success on your hands. For me, it was a Chile-Tea Rubbed Salmon with Lemon Scallion Rice. Once you make something great, you'll be hooked. Happy cooking to one and all!