Photo by liber

I don’t like the word hate and try not to use it. I especially dislike it when it is applied to any kind of food or cooking.

Do you really hate asparagus? Or are you just whining about something you haven’t bothered to learn to appreciate? Yeah, I thought so.

My theory is that most people who profess to hate cooking are actually just making excuses to avoid it. Why would anyone really hate cooking? What did cooking ever do to you?

The sad part is that cooking is a wonderful skill to have. Not only does it save you time and money on food, it can also contribute to better health, bring you closer to friends and family, and be a great creative outlet for stress.

You don’t have to love cooking, but knowing the basics and feeling competent in the kitchen can open a world of opportunity to improve your quality of life. But sure, go ahead and hate it if you want.

For the cautiously curious, here are a few of the obstacles that may be preventing you from getting past your pessimism and what to do to get over them.

10 Reasons You Hate To Cook

(And What To Do About It)

1. You suck at it

The first thing you need to do is understand the difference between not liking cooking and not liking to be bad at cooking. Big difference. I didn’t like being bad at cooking either, but there is a pretty easy solution: learn how. It’s much easier than you think.

2. You’re slow

I know you’re busy. We all have better things to do than slave away over one lousy meal. But when you aren’t experienced in the kitchen the planning, shopping, chopping, cooking and cleaning involved in making a meal can feel like it takes forever. That’s because it does.

I can always spot a kitchen rookie by how long it takes them to chop an onion (seriously it takes like 20 seconds max). The good news is with a little practice and some decent knives (see point 3) you can slash the time you spend making a meal until you barely notice.

Ditto for cleaning up. Seriously, put some muscle into it and it’s over in no time!

3. You have crappy knives

I generally don’t advise spending money to solve problems, but knives in the kitchen are an exception. Spending $50 on a half-way decent chef’s knife can do wonders for your kitchen confidence and efficiency.

And you probably already know what an inspiration a shiny new toy can be.

4. You pick complicated recipes

Some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten have less than 5 ingredients. If you’ve never cooked anything in your life, cassoulet shouldn’t be your first choice.

Rather than finding a recipe and deciding to cook it, start with an ingredient that is seasonal and you know you enjoy. It’s hard to mess up kale and garlic. Learn to fly before you jump off a cliff.

5. You choose out of season ingredients

The main reason people don’t like _(fill in the vegetable)_ is because they have only had it from industrial farms that grow foods out of season. I agree, you’d have to be a masochist to like these impostors.

Farmers markets and dedicated produce stands are your friends. In season ingredients taste worlds better than the out of season stuff shipped from the opposite hemisphere. Your food doesn’t have to be 100% local, but at least pick foods that grow in the same season you happen to be living in. This alone could completely change your cooking experience.

6. Your pantry is inadequate

It can be really annoying to flip through a recipe book or food blog and realize that you need to make one or many grocery trips in order to make any dish because you don’t have olive oil, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar or red chili flakes. If you don’t know what belongs in a basic pantry, check out my free How to get started eating healthy guide for a rundown.

7. You cook everything to death

Just because your mom cooked broccoli until it was dark gray and could be eaten by an infant doesn’t mean that’s how food is supposed to be prepared. Most vegetables cook quickly and taste better when they haven’t been incinerated. When your vegetables turn bright green in the pan, that’s your cue that the cooking is nearly done.

8. You only cook for large groups

Your first cooking forays shouldn’t be huge productions. Start simply and don’t bite off more than you can chew by promising to host a dinner or bring food to a potluck of 30 people. Start by volunteering to help in the kitchen with someone who knows what they’re doing. Make a side dish, or a simple one pot meal for yourself.

Practice makes perfect, and you want your first experiences to go smoothly to build your skills and confidence.

9. You only cook for special occasions

New cooks don’t need any extra pressure in the kitchen. If you’re just learning your way around the range, maybe you should hold off on hosting Thanksgiving dinner or Mother’s day brunch. It can be stressful to just coordinate a large meal, you don’t need the added pressure of possibly ruining a family holiday. If you want to contribute, volunteer to make the salad or biscuits. Start your real kitchen adventures in the privacy of your own home.

10. You don’t ask for help

If you are truly new to cooking, you may as well acknowledge that you will be slow and lack the basic skills and intuition of a seasoned chef. You are definitely capable of getting there, but in the mean time make your experience as pleasant as possible by letting others contribute their expertise and knife skills when you want to cook. It is also nice to have an extra pair of hands for cleanup.

Do you really hate cooking? Or are you just looking around the room and saying that you hate things?

Originally published May 31, 2010.

Tags: Farmers Market, knives, seasonal, vegetables

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Some truly fantastic articles this week including new data that farmers markets aren’t as expensive as you think, how to cut calories with a knife, and one of my favorite go-to recipes ever.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links at Twitter (@summertomato) and the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• New Study Compares Prices at Farmers’ Markets and Supermarkets. The Results Might Surprise You. <<Turns out when you actually do the comparison farmers markets are pretty affordable, particularly for organics. (Politics of the Plate)
• The “No Nitrites Added” Hoax <<Speaking of nutritionism, here it is at it’s worst. Just because it is natural, doesn’t make it nitrite free–if that even matters. Great investigative work by Michael Ruhlman.
• Do Cooking Shows Make You Fat? <<BS of the week. Though the article does a decent job of exploring the pros and cons, the idea that the popularization of food and cooking could be a bad thing makes me nauseated. We’d all be better served by embracing a stronger food culture. (Fox News)
• Rethinking Saturated Fat? <<I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Weil this week, and was struck by how thoughtfully he fields questions. Interesting to see his take on saturated fat evolve. (Dr. Weil)
• Is sodium a dietary red herring for the effects of processed foods? <<Totally agree with Yoni on this one. Interesting to see where the great salt debate finally lands. (Weighty Matters)
• How to Make Your Herbs Last Longer <<Just in time for spring! I have a lot of trouble keeping herbs fresh, so am excited to try these tricks. (Serious Eats)
• Cutting calories could be as easy as cutting up your food <<All these little behavioral tricks to cut calories can add up. Grab a knife. (Los Angeles Times)
• A Fresh Food Diet Rapidly Reduces Bisphenol-A Content Of Your Body <<Worried about BPA? Good news, it’s easy to cut your levels with a healthy diet. (TreeHugger)
• The Antidote to Fructose Fears <<Great perspective here for those of you who are now worried about fruit being dangerous because of the fructose it contains. (Nutrition Overeasy)
• Easiest Bean or Grain Salad on the Planet <<I love this because I seriously eat a variety of this several times a week, usually for lunch. Try using miso in place of the dijon mustard on occasion. (Mark Bittman)

What inspired you this week?

Tags: B.S. of the week, BPA, Farmers Market, fructose, herbs, nitrites, nutritionism, salt, saturated fat, sodium

Photo by evelynishere

Food shopping can be intimidating, especially if cooking is new to you.

A common approach to this problem is to pick your recipes beforehand, make a list of what you need and then shop until everything from the list is in your basket. But being comfortable shopping without a list is a valuable skill worth adding to your healthstyle toolkit.

Lists can come in handy, especially when you’re planning a large meal or event where organization is essential. But at a farmers market, shopping lists aren’t nearly as useful.

You can never be 100% certain of what you’re going to find at the market each week. Sure there are things you can usually count on (I know I can find kale at my market year round), but having a long catalog of ingredients for a particular recipe is likely to be frustrating.

A shopping list you can’t fulfill will leave you scrambling, running around the market looking for absent ingredients or inferior substitutes. No fun. The last thing you want to do is turn the farmers market into a source of anxiety.

Still the best reason to avoid lists at the farmers market is that discovering new and interesting foods is what makes shopping there such a treat. It takes an open mind and curious eyes if you hope to find the next tree tomato.

So how do you free yourself from the shackles of shopping lists without ending up with a pile of random vegetables and no obvious meals?

When shopping at a farmers market, the best meal planning strategy combines both structure and flexibility. Start with an idea of what you want to accomplish, then let the season’s offerings nourish your spirit of adventure and round out your menus.

Meal Planning at the Farmers Market

Step 1. Quantify

Think about how many meals you want to get from your purchases (e.g. 4 dinners, 5 lunches), and be sure to have that many main course ideas (vegetables being the centerpiece) given that a few will probably repeat.

At this point it is okay to have one or two things in mind you know you want to make, but the rest of your meals should be inspired by wandering through the aisles and seeing what catches your eye.

Step 2. Visualize

As you discover which foods will be the focal points of your meals, start to think about how you might like them cooked (even if you don’t know how). Think about what other flavors usually taste good with what you’re buying–consider herbs (parsley, thyme, mint, cilantro, etc.), proteins (meats, fish, eggs, legumes) and side dishes.

If you can’t think of anything, try to remember how these foods have been served to you in a restaurant. If you still aren’t sure what other flavors would be a good choice, ask the vendor you are buying from. Farmers are usually pretty good at cooking the foods they grow.

Step 3. Consolidate

For all the different ideas you had for meals, think of those with common flavors. Look for similarities between the dishes and overlapping ingredients. For example, most dishes will need some kind of onion, garlic or both. The farmers market is also a great place to get herbs and spices.

Look around and see what is available, purchasing the ingredients that are the most versatile. Flavors that can be included in several different dishes also give you the flexibility to change up your meal plans in middle of the week if you are suddenly struck with inspiration.

Step 4. Collect

As your ideas solidify, be sure to collect all the elements you need. iPhone apps can be particularly helpful with this if you want to double check ingredient lists. Because most popular recipes are born from available seasonal ingredients, it is likely you will find everything you need while shopping at the farmers market. If not, you might need to pick up the rest of your ingredients at a regular grocery store–not the end of the world.

To make sure you don’t forget anything, think about each dish individually and deconstruct each of the elements in your mind. This will jog your memory if you forgot to grab a lemon or some garlic.

Step 5. Plan

It is good to have a rough idea of when you are going to eat each of the meals you visualized. Some vegetables hold up better than others over the course of a week in the refrigerator. Plan to eat the most delicate produce in the first day or two, and save the hearty kale and broccoli for later in the week. Here are some tips to keep produce fresh.

Conclusion

Creative shopping without lists takes some practice, but you don’t have to be a master chef or flavor expert to get it right. When cooking with delicious, seasonal ingredients you can’t go wrong with simplicity. Start with the basics and work your way up as you get more comfortable in the kitchen and at the market.

Do you use shopping lists?

Originally published January 20, 2010.

Tags: Epicurious, Farmers Market, iPhone apps, local, Locavore, meal planning, shopping lists

Vegetables

“I’m amazed how many Californians don’t seem to realize that not everyone lives in an area of bountiful Farmers’ Markets.”

One of the most common complaints I get from readers is that they don’t have access to the same kind produce and farmers markets as I have here in San Francisco. Truth is, few places in the world have farmland like California and this is a legitimate gripe.

Luckily the number of farmers markets in the US has been on a steady increase over the last decade.

But I have a hunch there are other things keeping you from shopping at the farmers market each week and I’d love to know what you think.

Is it time? Money? Politics? Priorities? Or am I way off the mark?

Vote below and I’ll discuss the results in the coming weeks. If you choose “other” please give your reason in the comments so I have something to work with.

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Thanks team!

Tags: Farmers Market

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

It was an exciting week here at Summer Tomato, including an enlightening interview with food critic Michael Bauer that led to Summer Tomato mentions in both the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. Wednesday was also the anniversary of my very first blog post at my old Thought for Food blog. What a difference a year can make!

If you would like to see more of my favorite articles each week or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there.

Submissions of your own best food and health articles for future For The Love of Food posts are also welcome, just drop me an email using the contact form. I am also accepting guest posts at Summer Tomato for any healthy eating, living and exercise tips.

For The Love of Food

• To Market, To Market! Farmers Markets Should Make Some Noise During National Farmers Market Week <<Next week is national farmers market week! Celebrate by getting some summer tomatoes!! (Huffington Post)
• If we are what we eat, Americans are corn and soy <<Great piece by Dr. Sanjay Gupta over at CNN about the failing American diet.
• Organic food is no healthier, study finds <<B.S. of the week. The problem with this review is that so many of the studies cited are flawed, which I have discussed before. Big “organic” is not more nutritious. Duh. It still uses a monoculture system. However, that does not make the pesticides and chemical fertilizers any less dangerous (e.g. Parkinson’s disease, birth defects, asthma, etc.). Notably, large differences have been found in nutrient levels between biodynamically grown food and monoculture food. I recommend The Ominvore’s Dilemma if you want to understand this better. I’m sure big Ag loves this study. Please tell me in the comments if you would like me to do a thorough review of this publication next week. (Reuters)
• Use NEAT Activities to Burn More Calories <<One of the most effective ways to upgrade your healthstyle: do more non-exercise activities. (Lifehacker)
• The General Motors Diet <<Interesting op-ed in the New York Times proving that even rational, intelligent people fall into the diet trap. Don’t do it!
• The Big Question: Are You Better Than Yesterday? <<Fabulous guest post by Chad Fowler over at the Four Hour Work Week blog about how to tell if you are making progress on your health and fitness goals (or life in general).
• The Good Food Restaurant Map <<L.A. foodies pay attention! My favorite food podcast, Good Food on KCRW has a running map of the places Jonathan Gold (LA Weekly food critic) reviews each week on the show. I drool with envy every time he describes one, so if you’re in the area these are worth checking out!
• Heirloom Tomato Salad <<I love pics of tomatoes. Check out this beautiful summer tomato salad recipe. (FoodMayhem)
• Top 15 Social Media Resources for Foodies <<Great social media resources for online foodies, though it is not at all clear why Summer Tomato doesn’t appear on this list! (Mashable)
• The Claim: Refrigeration Preserves Nutrients <<I didn’t have a refrigerator for most of the week, so this article was good news for me! (New York Times)

What great articles did you read and write this week?

Tags: American diet, Diet, Exercise, Farmers Market, goals, Good Food, recipe, refrigerator, social media