When Recipes Go Awry

by Mark R. Vogel

Every single step you take in preparing a recipe has alternative options that can affect the finished product. Consider pasta preparation.

The amount of water, the amount of salt, when you add the pasta, how much pasta, when you remove it, how you drain it, and how soon it finds its way to the sauce are all variables.

Not to mention the stove, pot, chemical properties of the water, and brand of pasta. Are you starting to feel overwhelmed? This is why cooking frightens some people.

This discussion should be bringing you to the inescapable realization of how much a cook's expertise plays a role. An experienced chef is more knowledgeable about these factors, how to exploit the ones that are to his advantage, and how to compensate for those that are not.

You must also remember that the dish you are trying to replicate for the first time has probably been made by the TV chef a gazillion times.

(You also don't see the inevitable errant dishes that are edited out and redone). Cooking is a skill, complicated by a ponderous array of intermingling variables. Mastering such a fickle endeavor takes practice.

Knowledge, although vital, will only take you so far. Cooking is a process that requires a "feel", an intangible know-how that only comes with repeated exposure.

We could beat to death the physics of hitting a baseball, including equipment factors, human biology, psychological influences, etc. etc. etc. But the bottom line is you would have to practice it repeatedly to become deft at it.

But I want you to remain undaunted in the face of adversity. My reason for elucidating the overbearing number of variables is not to intimidate you, but to educate you.

Learning the facts is the starting point. Then, take your ever-growing knowledge and apply it, over and over again. Keep making that recipe till you master it on your cookware in your kitchen.

Do not get discouraged. As cliché as it sounds, this is definitely an arena where we learn from our mistakes. No more burning crostini in that one oven for me.