This is a place to learn how to cook. You may have years of experience, or you might burn toast. Regardless, this is a collection of things I know from all over the world. Useful tips to cooking for yourself and for others. Getting to know your food and how to turn simple ingredients into something delicious. This is a how to cook great food on a budget, a college students guide to eating good, healthier food for less. This is a tutorial on how to throw dinner parties and events, how to bring people together under your roof to have a good time. This is Spice For Your Life. Now let's get cooking.

First off, you can't be intimidated by cooking. Everything that that anyone has ever cooked or ever will cook can and will be duplicated. Most recipes started out on a primitive fire without the technology of instant heat control as we have today, as well as hundreds of other tried-and-true methods of cooking that have been developed. The basics are the same, and understanding how food works and what different types of heat and preparation does to the food is key.

There isn't some magical method that us cooks in the restaurant world use to make your food the way it is. You can do anything we can do at home. Sure you might not have sous vide machine to vacuum seal and slow cook your food, but you can have a similar outcome a few different ways. This blog is about cooking with what you have, and doing it well.

Basic Knife Skills

         One of the most important parts of cooking is knowing how to use a knife. Good knife skills make it so you can cut quickly and effectively with uniform results. The reason people on cooking shows and in restaurants look professional while cutting anything is because of their technique.  It is simple enough to learn, and can save your fingers.
        The first thing to do is to hold your non-knife arm out in front of you, your forearm parallel with your chest, palm down. tuck in your thumb and curl your fingers under, not into a fist, but so your hand kinda resembles a dog's paw. When you hold your knife, grip it as if you were shaking someone's hand, at the top of the handle, your hand turned slightly sideways with the base of your forefinger on the back edge. Holding the knife this way gives you the most control. 
        Now to the actual chopping, If you want to learn this technique properly, you are going to need to practice. Veggies are perfect for practicing knife skills because they are cheap, small, and easy to manage. Celery stalks, green onions, zucchini, are all great to work on because of their shape, they allow you to make dozens of cuts in succession so you can practice accuracy and control while seeing how similar each slice is to the others. As you slice, the side of the knife should be resting against the knuckle of your guide hand. It may be scary at first, but it the best way to keep control and always know where your blade is.
    
        Remember, holding your off-arm and hand out this way will feel unnatural at first, and if you're doing it right, it might get sore or cramp up. This is normal, after a week or so of using this method, it will be second nature. Start out chopping slowly, focusing on uniformity of the pieces, and as you get more comfortable, you will naturally want to go faster, and chopping will become easy.

*note- when you are clearing things out of the way on your cutting board, never scrape the blade sideways on the cutting board. This dulls the blade and changes the shape of the edge, making it curve off to one side. This is a mistake I see people who have spent $60,000 on culinary school make all the time. If you need to clear, turn the knife over and use the back of the blade, or carefully slide your knife underneath from the side holding the knife at the angle of the blade lightly against the cutting board. This is more natural for the blade and won't dull it.

My knives so far.

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