Thursday, June 15, 2006
The Loser Chef Manifesto For Cooking
1. If you can afford to eat decent food in a restaurant or similar place, don't bother cooking, because you know you will fail horribly at it. This manifesto is not for people who "know" how to cook food properly. Those are superficial people who always rely on recipes to accomplish anything in this domain.
2. The purpose of cooking is to survive (to stay alive). Avoid getting fancy. Do not attempt to buy special cooking equipment. Stick with the essentials (saucepan, stove, knife and board, something to mix the ingredients with (like a spoon)). Whenever you are taking yourself seriously beyond this manifesto, you are no longer a loser chef. In any case, remember that nobody has the right to indulge in overprepared fancy pretentious food with overloaded nutrition that makes you overweight when half the world is starving. This obviously cannot be mandated but is a matter for your conscience to deal with. Yes, you have one life so you need to enjoy it but within certain limits.
3. The goal is to prepare food that is as tasteless (neutral) as possible. At least, this can turn out to be something you excel in.
4. This accomplishment will be yours alone to take pride in, in solitude. Do not try to cook for friends or family. If they want to eat your food, warn them as to your unique cooking philosophy (refer them to this manifesto) but let them eat if they so want. Do not take note of how the taste of a "meal"* turned out to be. If it tastes good, you got lucky. Enjoy and then forget about it. Have absolutely no other expectation than to help your body meet its nutritional needs (Mohandas Gandhi had a similar philosophy). Do not expect anyone (including yourself) to enjoy the food you cook according to my manifesto.
5. Do NOT do grocery immediately before cooking. Do your grocery at times when you're not planning to cook and buy random (on the cheap and healthy side) stuff which you subconsciously contemplate cooking. You are not trying to cook anything known to man; therefore, planned grocery shopping is unnecessary and a hindrance to your unique style.
6. Do NOT cook from recipes. Each "meal" you cook will be completely unique and never replicated, unless by accident. All cooking activity must be spontaneous, not planned. Add cooking ingredients randomly, as you discover them in the depths of your fridge and cupboard.
7. The primary means to cook is by adding ingredients (chosen at random from whatever happens to be available in your fridge and kitchen) to a saucepan sitting upon a stove. A golden rule of cooking: Whenever you are hesitant about adding an ingredient (i.e. whenever you have concerns that this ingredient will not make your "meal" taste better or that it will not react well to being heated up) simply go ahead and add it in. This will assure a unique "meal." Remember that potatos used to be only fed to animals until some guy in Italy decided to eat them.
8. Do NOT let food rot. When you're done cooking, spare the leftover for the next day. Store it in the fridge and take it to work. When you have leftover, combine it with new ingredients the next time you cook. This way your "meals" can keep on evolving into each other without ever being finished.
9. Do NOT use completely rotten ingredients, but DO USE rotting ingredients. To prevent ingredients from rotting in the depths of your fridge, prioritize their usage. Ingredients that appear to be rotting or are more vulnerable to rotting should be the first to be used in the next cooking activity. This way, you save as much of the rotting food before they are completely rotten. Experiment with rotting foods to see in what state they are still edible without necessitating a hospital visit, and in what state they must certainly be thrown away. Use house pets first for the latter purpose, then yourself.
10. Do NOT use any salt whatsoever. Salt only adds an artificial taste to food and disguises the tastelessness of your "meal." You must feel the real taste(lessness) of the product of your cooking activity. I do not encourage you to eat food that makes your stomach upset. I am rather talking about the neutrality in taste when I refer to tastelessness.
11. Spices other than salt are okay as long as they are used in small amounts. Certain spices really blend in well with tasteless "meals." Do not shop for spices in any case. Use them if you already had them or your roomate/spouse keeps them.
12. Do NOT serve any drink with your "meal" other than water and milk.
13. Cooking as defined here does not rely on knowledge. Try to cook with ingredients that do not require knowledge for proper cooking or storage. For instance, avoid meat if you can because it takes more knowledge to handle than we'd like (you can even die from eating meat that is not cooked or stored properly). Vegetables, fruits, nuts, tofu, dairy products, pasta, and canned fish on the other hand are better ingredients for spontaneous cooking.
14. Do NOT feel as if you have to add a little bit from everything you see around in the kitchen. The goal is to be efficient -that is, cheap. The best "meal" is the one that satisfies your nutritional needs the most using the least number of ingredients.
* The word "meal" is in quotes in the manifesto because 90% of the time, you will not get a fellow human being to call what you end up cooking a "meal." This is proof that you are now a MASTER loser chef. Contact me then. I will give you a special medal.
2. The purpose of cooking is to survive (to stay alive). Avoid getting fancy. Do not attempt to buy special cooking equipment. Stick with the essentials (saucepan, stove, knife and board, something to mix the ingredients with (like a spoon)). Whenever you are taking yourself seriously beyond this manifesto, you are no longer a loser chef. In any case, remember that nobody has the right to indulge in overprepared fancy pretentious food with overloaded nutrition that makes you overweight when half the world is starving. This obviously cannot be mandated but is a matter for your conscience to deal with. Yes, you have one life so you need to enjoy it but within certain limits.
3. The goal is to prepare food that is as tasteless (neutral) as possible. At least, this can turn out to be something you excel in.
4. This accomplishment will be yours alone to take pride in, in solitude. Do not try to cook for friends or family. If they want to eat your food, warn them as to your unique cooking philosophy (refer them to this manifesto) but let them eat if they so want. Do not take note of how the taste of a "meal"* turned out to be. If it tastes good, you got lucky. Enjoy and then forget about it. Have absolutely no other expectation than to help your body meet its nutritional needs (Mohandas Gandhi had a similar philosophy). Do not expect anyone (including yourself) to enjoy the food you cook according to my manifesto.
5. Do NOT do grocery immediately before cooking. Do your grocery at times when you're not planning to cook and buy random (on the cheap and healthy side) stuff which you subconsciously contemplate cooking. You are not trying to cook anything known to man; therefore, planned grocery shopping is unnecessary and a hindrance to your unique style.
6. Do NOT cook from recipes. Each "meal" you cook will be completely unique and never replicated, unless by accident. All cooking activity must be spontaneous, not planned. Add cooking ingredients randomly, as you discover them in the depths of your fridge and cupboard.
7. The primary means to cook is by adding ingredients (chosen at random from whatever happens to be available in your fridge and kitchen) to a saucepan sitting upon a stove. A golden rule of cooking: Whenever you are hesitant about adding an ingredient (i.e. whenever you have concerns that this ingredient will not make your "meal" taste better or that it will not react well to being heated up) simply go ahead and add it in. This will assure a unique "meal." Remember that potatos used to be only fed to animals until some guy in Italy decided to eat them.
8. Do NOT let food rot. When you're done cooking, spare the leftover for the next day. Store it in the fridge and take it to work. When you have leftover, combine it with new ingredients the next time you cook. This way your "meals" can keep on evolving into each other without ever being finished.
9. Do NOT use completely rotten ingredients, but DO USE rotting ingredients. To prevent ingredients from rotting in the depths of your fridge, prioritize their usage. Ingredients that appear to be rotting or are more vulnerable to rotting should be the first to be used in the next cooking activity. This way, you save as much of the rotting food before they are completely rotten. Experiment with rotting foods to see in what state they are still edible without necessitating a hospital visit, and in what state they must certainly be thrown away. Use house pets first for the latter purpose, then yourself.
10. Do NOT use any salt whatsoever. Salt only adds an artificial taste to food and disguises the tastelessness of your "meal." You must feel the real taste(lessness) of the product of your cooking activity. I do not encourage you to eat food that makes your stomach upset. I am rather talking about the neutrality in taste when I refer to tastelessness.
11. Spices other than salt are okay as long as they are used in small amounts. Certain spices really blend in well with tasteless "meals." Do not shop for spices in any case. Use them if you already had them or your roomate/spouse keeps them.
12. Do NOT serve any drink with your "meal" other than water and milk.
13. Cooking as defined here does not rely on knowledge. Try to cook with ingredients that do not require knowledge for proper cooking or storage. For instance, avoid meat if you can because it takes more knowledge to handle than we'd like (you can even die from eating meat that is not cooked or stored properly). Vegetables, fruits, nuts, tofu, dairy products, pasta, and canned fish on the other hand are better ingredients for spontaneous cooking.
14. Do NOT feel as if you have to add a little bit from everything you see around in the kitchen. The goal is to be efficient -that is, cheap. The best "meal" is the one that satisfies your nutritional needs the most using the least number of ingredients.
* The word "meal" is in quotes in the manifesto because 90% of the time, you will not get a fellow human being to call what you end up cooking a "meal." This is proof that you are now a MASTER loser chef. Contact me then. I will give you a special medal.
# posted by Adil @ 9:50 PM 
