On Cooking: The Eat-fold Path

As some of the more astute readers* may have noticed, on the sidebar you'll find a link to my recipe blog, The Boat & Bridal Expo. Cooking is one of my favorite activities and not simply because I love food--though, as a former fat kid, I probably love food too much--but because of the meditative nature of the act.

Preparing meals is an intensely personal experience at every stage. At the market, you buy the foods that interest you. When you get home, you reflect on what you have available and decide what to make. As you cook, you add the ingredients you desire and season them to your own Platonic ideal of perfection. While you eat, you determine the setting to enjoy it in. In effect, you are romancing your palette.

By contrast, when you go out to eat you rely upon a series of decisions made by unknown individuals. Certainly, you have control over where you eat and what you order but your other options are limited. While some establishments may give you a say in how the food is prepared (e.g. grilled vs. baked), it is generally frowned upon to second guess the choices of the chef--who himself is preparing the meal based upon his own biased and the inherited culinary biases of the chefs who trained him. Essentially, your free will comes into play only at the stage where you salt and pepper your meal.

That is not to say that I do not enjoy going to a restaurant occasionally or that I will refuse to eat a meal cooked by someone else. Its good to experience something outside oneself in order to gain some perspective. For instance, I have never liked baked beans until I ate some at a barbecue held by Pauly--in the short time since, I have cooked them myself twice.** However, taken to the extreme, a life of eating meals only prepared by other people deprives you of valuable self knowledge; you are allowing others to define your tastes.

* I assume the imbeciles who read this blog were accidentally led here after googling "Dane Cook."

** Both recipes can be found by following the link above.