There are two things in my life that I usually wing, cooking and directions. The good news is, it usually ends up working out in my favor. The bad is when it doesn’t, it truly does not.
My lack of concern for exact directions has been a boiling point factor for many passengers in my life. Any trip to Coventry, a friend’s house, somewhere I saw once, doesn’t require directions in my mind as long as I know I’m going in the correct general direction. My certainty is wrought with qualifiers, for example; “This is the road we need to be on, I think,” “we should be coming up on the entrance, soon-ish,” “the turn is after a sign that says ‘michael’s hair shoppe’ or something like that.” Yet, time after time, I arrive at my location.
I did not grow up cooking, bake…sure, cooking in general? Not so much. Over the past couple years I’ve done some drive-bys with the culinary arts, like how many different ways can one cook tubed ground beef, the precise amount of water to add for the correct cheese to water ratio in easy mac, and a few staple appetizers to bring to parties (killer buffalo chicken dip, veggie pizza, etc.)
Most recently, I began my cooking adventure this summer. Nice steaks were on sale at a local grocery store. I had the house/kitchen/grill to myself and some excellent dinner company on the way. I thought, I will grill steaks tonight. How hard can grilling be? At my house despite the fact there’s three or four grills, you’ve got two options, charcoal or gas. Charcoal seems far less intimidating to me. After putting charcoal in the grill, trying to light it, trying to wait for it to heat up, and remembering that patience is not my greatest asset, I white-flagged that project and moved onto the gas grill. No worries, I know how to use one, I accidently almost lost my eyebrows to lack of gas grill knowledge, and you don’t make that mistake twice.
I rub the steak in some steak rubbing stuff and on the lit grill it goes. Google had instructed on proper steak cooking and I put the lid down and went inside to prep the spinach salad and potatoes. I came out, flipped the steak and the underside had turned a mouth-watering meat color with darkened grill lines. I was pretty pleased. I then sat on the deck of the house, with a glass of red wine and a good book. My sun dress fanned out around me and I breathed in the cooling summer air. After some time (not much) I tapped the top of the steak and deemed it cooked. I put it on a plate to soak it’s juices up before I cut it. My dinner partner arrived just in time and we sat down to the most delicious summer steak I accidentally cooked.
I’m a firm believer that as long as I point myself in the correct direction and start moving, life will work out. Fretting over details, like exact measurements or which streets you’ll pass just complicates. The few times I’ve followed every word on a recipe it’s been exhausting, and by the time the food is (over)made, I have lost my appetite. There is no need to fret over every little thing, especially if it’ll keep you from enjoying whatever it is you’re trying to achieve.
Here’s to winging it.
