Photo Credit: Tim Davis
Once upon a time I didn’t know shrimp were gray until you cooked them. I decided to make some Sweet And Sour Shrimp, so I went to the grocery store and bought a bag of frozen shrimp. They didn’t say “cooked” on the package, because of course everyone knows that the pink ones are already cooked. You see where this is going, right?
If you’ve never re-cooked shrimp, let me tell you … they get rubbery like you wouldn’t believe. It’s not something you have to do twice to learn your lesson.
That’s how it is a lot of the time with cooking. There are things you don’t know, and you don’t know you don’t know them. You’re just not going to think to ask about it. You can spend a lot of time being embarrassed, or you can tell people, “Well, it was my first time. The good new is, next time I make it for you it has to be better.”
That’s a big part or learning anything new. You just have to try it and expect to make some mistakes. And you hope your friends and family are willing to laugh it off with you.
What’s he talking about
If you didn’t sign up early for the free course I’m offering — How To Cook Like Your Mother: Starting From Scratch, see the signup link at the top of the column on the right — then you didn’t get to see me mess up with the new email scheduling software I’m using.
The fields for “Days” and “Hours” are right next to each other, so I sent out the 10th lesson 10 HOURS after I signed up the early group. The lesson that said, “And hey, if you liked all this stuff, you’ll really love the book.”
Sure, there’s a sales pitch at the end. But like I say in it, I really think you’ll like what’s in the book. I wouldn’t be selling it if I didn’t think so. And the other nine lessons have a lot of new material I’ve never posted on the blog, so the course is great information all on its own.
Self-service now available … I hope
Now that I’ve learned that lesson, it’s time to see if I can find another way to mess this up. The form on the right should make the whole process of signing up self-service. You enter your email address, the next day you start getting email. I think. I’ve tried it myself and it worked, but you never know.
If you sign up using the form, or if you sent me an email before I had the form ready, you should start getting the lessons. If you don’t, please let me know. I’ll get it straightened out even if I have to send every email by hand until it’s fixed.
But not tonight. Tonight … I sleep.
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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4 Comments
So, here’s a sad tale from about 22 years ago: my brother and I, cooking an International Meal for Mother’s Day. We had somehow forgotten that she is NOT an adventurous eater. Horror #1: Sometimes, pink shrimp isn’t completely cooked. They expect you to finish it at home. Who knew? So, we served the parcooked shrimp w/cocktail sauce. The result: mother gagging in the bathroom.
Then, we served a course of glass noodles in peanut sauce. She hated the texture of the noodles. The result: mother gagging in the bathroom. It was a “celebration” we will never forget.
After that, we went out for Mother’s Day!
Okay Jenni, that’s news to me. How do you tell the difference between parcooked and completely cooked?
I was an early signee to the course and when I received that first/final email I said, out loud — “Oh dear, that wasn’t supposed to happen” and laughed and hoped you were laughing at the mistake, too.
I have had many cooking disasters and stopped cooking for years and years. I married the man I did because I felt that I couldn’t cook – and he was a good cook. But I hated not knowing how to make anything so I’ve been on a quest the past few years to learn how to cook real food.
I thank you for your website (and now your email course!!)
Kirby, first I said a few bad words. Then I laughed … sort of.
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