A great explanation for my cooking/baking dissociation

[lanalucy]

"I’m a good baker, but I am a terrible cook. ... I’ve heard it’s a left-brain/right-brain kind of thing: people who like cooking like playing it by ear and improvising, while people who like baking tend to be goal-oriented and want to know exactly what their outcome will be. Cooking is an art, but baking is a science, and I’m probably the most scientifically-minded person to graduate with a degree in Drama from NYU."

From here.

Comments

[4kennedy.livejournal.com]

hehehe. I can so relate to that. I really enjoy baking, I find it relaxing. Cooking is fine, but I rarely do cook and only small, simple dishes. This is the first time I've heard an explanation for it, even though I'm not a scientific person. Not at all. But when it comes to baking/cooking I'm not one for experiments, I'm just not good enough for improvising.

[lanalucy]

I am getting to the point where I'll experiment a little. And by little, I mean adding an extra tablespoon of garlic or something, not trying some new ingredient. I am lucky that my landlady loves cooking, and can tell me if something I'm thinking about will even work, and if it won't, what would make it work. My simple fix for lots of stuff is "add garlic." lol

However, I do not enjoy cooking, and when it's something I don't mind making, I hate that I'm making it for myself. I don't appreciate my own efforts enough to make the work worthwhile. :D

Baking, I'm willing to try little things, like adding a different kind of nut, or adding dried cranberries to something that doesn't call for fruit, but I definitely like that with baking, it has to be done exactly right, or it comes out frakked up.

I don't know that the explanation is right, but it works for me, and sort of explains why I like baking but not cooking. I mean, with baking, I know that if I follow the recipe, the end product will be what the recipe says it will be. With cooking, it doesn't always work that way. At least not for me. :/

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with the quote! Baking is a whole other beast, different from cooking, and it's definitely more science. (I saw a really interesting pin once about how each ingredient affects chocolate chip cookies.) Cooking is much more forgiving, especially things like soups and stews, where a lot of times I don't even bother to measure everything- I just toss in as much as I want.

Does what you can do with the product make a difference for you, too? When I cook, it's usually for me and my family, and that's it. But when I bake, I'm likely to give quite a bit of it away to friends or coworkers, and that makes me happy. Baking is an act of science, but it's also often an act of love, whereas cooking is an art, but also a survival technique.

[lanalucy]

Hmm. Yes, and no.

I enjoy baking, whether I eat the finished product myself over the course of a week or two, or share it with someone else, or freeze most of it for later - much of my baking can be frozen once baked.

I do not enjoy cooking, but I dislike it less when I can share it with someone and they like what I've shared with them.

This ties in with my love languages, the primary of which is Acts of Service. I can't give acts of service if the only person on the receiving end is me. I don't have to get the kudos, I just need to share/do/help. Cooking and baking, I like those better when I can get some feedback, even if it's, "Man, this is nasty. Please don't make this again." Other acts of service, I almost prefer to be anonymous.

Part of my problem with cooking, too, is that I grew up cooking for a family of six, one of whom was a teenage boy. Now it's just me. It's very difficult to parse the things I know how to cook into much smaller portions without messing something up along the way. It's easier for me to just microwave something. I have a cache of about a dozen things that I make reasonably well, and enjoy eating repeatedly, so I can make a batch of it, and don't mind having the same thing for dinner four or five days in a row. A lot of the things I grew up eating, and enjoy, are things I can't cook just for myself, because no matter how much I like them once, or maybe even twice, I don't want them five days in a row.

I am semi-enjoying experimenting a little with my crockpot. Most of that stuff I can portion out, and freeze at least half in dinner-size containers, so I'm not stuck eating the same thing. But even crockpot stuff is hard to make for just one or two people. I guess, as much as I don't particularly enjoy having people around me all the time, I'd rather cook for a small crowd than just myself.

Really though, what I want is to be independently wealthy so I can hire a cook. :D

[elzed.livejournal.com]

That makes complete sense - the baker/cook dichotomy exists in French, too, but I had never seen it explained as science (mind you with ready made pastry it takes something out of the equation). I'm totally a cook rather than a baker - I bake very rarely - cakes for kids' birthdays, homemade pizza now and then, and that's about it. It's partly to do with diet - I rarely eat cake/cookies/tarts/pies (who needs the extra pastry calories?!), and hardly ever desserts - but also, largely to do with my personal tastes. And I substitute ingredients with abandon...

;)

[lanalucy]

Heee! I like something that I can go down the list, adding precise amounts, and know exactly what I'll end up with. Very little outside the box. I am not an outside the box thinker. lol

[4kennedy.livejournal.com]

well at least you're experimenting =) I should try your "add garlic" method sometime. It's always good to have a simple fix.
I know what you mean. It's a waste of time if you're only cooking for yourself .But I cooked more when I was living alone, well it feels like it, because it didn't matter if I screwed it up as it was only meant for me.
So I have the same reasons as you for prefering baking over cooking =)

[fragrantwoods.livejournal.com]

This makes a lot of sense :-) I'm a cook, not so much a baker: if I taste something when I'm dining out, there's a good chance I can hit the local Asian/International store and dupe it and I love cooking, recipe books, etc.

Baking...I hated it until I decided to use metric for all my baking (and a scale). That was the first time I could consistently bake worth anything. I like the exactness of weight instead of cups and tablespoons.

I love a popular cooking mag that will have someone go through making 10 pie crusts, seeing what difference temp of water, type of fat, etc. makes. I guess it helps to see what didn't work if I'm trying to work out how to make it work in my head.

Agree with the "just add garlic" mantra, although for me, it's also "add some caramelized onion!"

[afrakaday.livejournal.com]

Ha! I love to cook-- I find it really satisfying and fun-- but can't bake for anything. If I was a character in game of thrones, my house words would be, "we do not bake." It's as if I become totally unable to follow directions. I also find the sheer number of ingredients daunting in a way that doesn't bother me when I'm preparing food.

Great quote.

[lanalucy]

I would love to have that ability (to taste and recreate). So many things I could make at home that I can only get when I eat at a restaurant.

Interesting that baking by weight instead of cups and spoons made the difference for you.

The metric system is so much easier - everything's either a tenth of something, or ten of something. I don't know why we don't convert.

Now, as much as I hate to cook, I collect (or have in the past) recipe books. Most of the ones I still have are for crockpots, but I still have more than just a few cookbooks. I guess I always hoped I would learn to like to cook? lol

I just recently went ahead and bought the "super" size of minced garlic, and the last time I made beans, I added about a third of a cup. I LOVE garlic. Probably don't want to sit next to me on the fandom couch. :D

[lanalucy]

Way too funny. I am the opposite. Baking is so precise, and there are so few ingredients, with a measurable expected outcome. Cooking, not so much. Heeee!

[singerdiva01-sk.livejournal.com]

Wow, I totally identify with this! I love baking and I actually love cooking too but I'm far better at the former. I follow all recipes to the letter but I think cooking recipes require an acquired knowledge of when something is off or even when a recipe is wrong whereas I rarely screw up a baking recipe. (Hello, yesterday's banana bread where I forgot the third banana after the cat sent a vase crashing to the floor.) I love to bake for others, most often colleagues and sometimes friends, but I really am only confident to cook, especially new things, for my closest friends. I do enjoy their honesty, though. Last night, to a pretty complicated pasta/mushroom/gorgonzola dish: "That should have been good but you majorly fu**ed it up." ROFL.

Also, sorry I left this comment under another unrelated one earlier and then deleted it. HOW LONG does it take not to suck at LJ?

[finalparadox.livejournal.com]

What does it mean if you suck at both? O.o

[lanalucy]

That you're still an okay person in my book. :D

[lanalucy]

Heee! I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Love having friends like that. "Dude, what the ever-lovin' fuck is this?"

Yes to the cooking - I can sometimes tell when something is missing or off, but I don't know how to fix it, other than my recently-acquired "add garlic" or "add cayenne" mantra. I've discovered I also like more cayenne in my food than other people do, too. I am getting to be an odd bird in my 40s.

[singerdiva01-sk.livejournal.com]

Dude, a desire to add a shit ton of cayenne to any recipe isn't a sign of aging. It's a sign you'd like to become an honorary (foodie) Texan.

Sincerely,

27 year-old foodie cayenne obsessed because it reminds me of my childhood Texan

[lanalucy]

I am the quintessential "I wasn't born here, but I got here as fast as I could" Texan. My mother was born in Dumas. My father was born in Ruidoso, but moved to Texas when he was just a baby. I was born in Japan, which is not even American soil, much less Texas. I qualify for DAR and DTR through my ancestry, but technically, I'm not a Texan.

Technically.

I have, however, lived in Texas for more than 40 of my 49 years, notwithstanding an unfortunate detour to the State of Missouri in the late 80s. I sometimes like to pretend those five years never happened, so please let me have my delusion. :)

[singerdiva01-sk.livejournal.com]

OMG. Had forgotten (or maybe didn't know) you were a Texan too! (40 of 49 years beats my born there but left at 20 -- I have birthright, you have liferight!)

I'm from Lubbock, all my aunts live in Midland/Odessa, and my grandparents live in Lamesa. My dad's from Portales, NM. I love Texas so much -- the food, the people, the culture -- and yet I was, at the time, sort of run out on a rail for being a feminist activist drawing attention to Lubbock.

So here's a cooking problem you will recognize. Rotel is hard to come by in NYC. Like, have to look in every deli you go in and hope to be lucky and still must rely on mom to just mail it because it's so scarce. Insult to injury: Velveeta is often found in the freezer section. WTF?! Stuff could survive a Cylon holocaust. And here's the biggest warning from a Texan turned NYC'er: bad (too much sugary mix, weak tequila, not enough salt) margaritas run $13 a drink. Yup, you read that right. No $15 pitchers here, cowgirls.

Don't mess with Texas women. ;)

[lanalucy]

Velveeta in the FREEZER section? What is wrong with people? lol

I could never be an alcoholic in NYC. I am WAY too cheap. Hahaha!

If mom ever can't get you Rotel, I'll be happy to ship it. :D

[singerdiva01-sk.livejournal.com]

RE: the Velveeta. IDEK. But it's standard across the city. At the very least it's in the fridge. They seem to be under the impression it's real cheese. Fools.

Thanks for the offer of Rotel help! But be careful because I may have a whole list. HEB tortillas. Deep Eddy's grapefruit vodka. Rosa's Cantina anything. Taco C. anything. Mexican martinis from Trudy's. Chilton's.

Frak. Now I'm starving and homesick. Someone call me an ugly, disgraceful, sinful dyke before I think it's a good idea to move home!

[lanalucy]

I am a complete bitch, so I am going to mention Blue Bell.

*runs away cackling as fast as possible*

HEB hasn't made it here yet. It's made it as far north as Waco. Central Market is here, though. But every time I go home (San Antonio), I have to go to HEB at least once, even if I'm not going to buy anything. :)

I think we're allowed to have dykes in Texas. If not, no one ever told me. I've known more than a few. lol Maybe it's the sinful part? We are in the Bible belt, though I think of the metroplex as more the local willy-wagger. Heeee!

[singerdiva01-sk.livejournal.com]

HA! Every single Texan I know would slap my wrist for neglecting Blue Bell. One problem: I hate all ice cream no matter what brand. I know, I accept the shame.

HEB hasn't made it to Lubbock yet, we have our own high end local store brand that's managed to fend them off. (I went to UT Austin, explaining my HEB love) Central Market. There was one in Austin but it was in too wealthy of an are for me to find an excuse to go. Lots of friends liked it and I'm glad you do too!

Dykes are allowed in Texas, I think. A high femme lesbian masquerading (because she had no idea) as an evangelical, virginity pledging teen just fighting for comprehensive sex education to the point there was national attention and a movie on the topic...well, yeah. It's not so much that I go back and get called out for being a lesbian. It's more I go back and get called out for being me. (banghead)

(BTW: Am on a long flight so you are under no obligation to keep commenting back!)

[lanalucy]

I can eat Blue Bell, Breyers, or homemade ice cream. Everything else makes me ill. :/

Central Market is HEB's answer to Whole Foods. It's ginormous, and clean, and has a fantastic selection of various things, but it is on the spendy side. It's also laid out like Ikea. You have to go the way they tell you - you can't just pop in, get something, and get right back out. It's a maze. lol