Recipes ~ Who needs em ...?

Most often, when people think of a chef the first thing that pops into their mind is French cuisine made by a 5 star French chef. We imagine that they have some kind of magical talent when it comes to food and cooking it. 

Borrowing from Michael Booth, English food and travel writer, one has to ask what is that the French know about cooking? They know that you don't need a recipe. Because, every step-by-step recipe is likely doomed to failure.

Why failure? Because, following a recipe is not following your own taste preferences. Largely, failing when following a recipe is likely due to human error which means that recipes can be badly written, improperly explained, or not properly tested; especially, those found in magazines and even in some cookbooks.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could be free from the tyranny of recipe 'pros' and 'promoters' and just cook by ourselves without their help. We could skip gaily through our local farmers' markets or favorite supermarkets choosing whatever is in season or just tickles our fancy. Then once at home, create our own meals using our own taste bud preferences.

This is exactly what it means to be a brainy gourmet. Since day one, the Brainy Gourmet has advocated cooking without a recipe. Now, this does come by trial and error. You first need to understand your taste bud preferences for sweet and savory and start simple.

Once you understand what you like to eat and how you want it to taste, you will be successful and enjoy cooking at home. And, moreover, you won't waste time and money on expensive ingredients. You can buy the ingredients you like to work with and that's being a Brainy Gourmet and its being frugal...saving you time and money. 

Check out the recommended basic pantry list on the side margin of this blog as well as previous blog posts and get cooking.  Of course, you can put together your own basic pantry and take off from there.

~ Tutti a Tavola!