Week 2!

 

This week, the theme for my cooking was from two books by David Chang, a famous Korean-American chef who founded Momofuku restaurant in New York. I tried to use mostly recipes from his two books, as well as look at other things we had made such as a few different tv shows.  Much as with last week, the focus was on culture and chef as well as the food itself. This was especially interesting, as Chang is much more socially outspoken than last week’s chef, Francis Mallman, as well as being a larger force in the American culinary scene. His show Ugly Delicious was especially interesting, and brought up interesting commentary about the social currents attached to many foods in the US, and the cultural meaning of certain dishes, some of which have massive amounts of importance in American culture. He also has some amazing recipes, all of which were much easier to understand and make than the ones from last week.

This week was mostly successful, and I think a good amount of it was me getting better at picking recipes. Last week, I mainly chose them by just what I wanted to have or cook the most rather than considering technique or what ingredients I already had, which caused an unnecessary headache getting everything together and shopping for ingredients. This week I tried to figure out more about what I could make in the moment with what I had on hand, which was very helpful for a few days when I had less time to work on the project. One of my bigger dishes, a Massaman curry, took going to the store and finding some specialty ingredients, but smaller dishes like egg tarts were easy to make with what I already had. I honestly almost felt more helpful just using what I already had to make something, as it did not entail a huge process and still had a pretty good result. I think a moment I really enjoyed this week was when I was making the curry, and after letting it simmer for around 20 minutes and tasting it, I just was really excited with how it tasted. It was easily the thing that I thought turned out the best so far, and definitely something that I had a lot of fun working on.

For a reflection on my goals, I’ll list them again and then write about how I think they are going.

1: Improve my tangible cooking skills- This is something that I am definitely making progress on, but I still have a while to go. My dad has been giving me tips, and I am on my way to improving, but a lot of it is just cooking more and more frequently and not just for the project.

2: Focus on the process of creating a meal (Shopping, prep, cleaning, community)- This has been a slight struggle, especially this week. I sometimes find myself a bit busy, then get put off by cooking because of the big process it sometimes entails. I think that working on enjoying every aspect of the process is a big goal for me, and something I’ll move towards.

3: Explore the foods of each region thoroughly and respectfully

This has definitely been the most enjoyable aspect of my goals, and learning about new cultures and foods every week is exciting and gets me excited to start making those foods.

I think what I've learned from this week especially is that sometimes taking anxiety off cooking and making the process enjoyable is the best way to get better. If there is a huge process and goal, it can be really fun, but it can also be a little stressful not wanting to mess up a step or an ingredient. Making sure cooking is a calming process is definitely the way to go, and has helped me feel much more confident as my project has gone along.

Questions I have are: 

Any ideas for things to cook?

Any really fun recipes that you think I should check out? 

Interesting chefs or cultures?