How many Men here can actually cook ? What's your special?
I can't really cook.
It just doesn't stick in my head.
I can follow recipes.
I'm good at that. I really like The Joy of Cooking cookbook. I also have my own set of recipes I use.
I like watching cooking shows like british bakeoff and iron chef and good eats and cutthroat kitchen, looking up online the recipes they use and recreating them.
I can look at recipes and figure out how they're going to taste and what I can/need to add to it, or which spices to interchange, in order to get it to my tastes and know what the final result will be, how any new ingredients will interact. I can figure out how I need to modulate my oven/stove temperature to match what they're telling me.
I can read a recipe and figure out alternative means to achieve the same result. Like turning something into a casserole and knowing what ingredients to add to reduce or increase moisture, or retain a crispy crust, and still taste good (to me).
I can be following a recipe while cooking and see what's going on and what I need to change in order to not screw it up. Like making cheese sauce from a roux and knowing I need to add lipids to facilitate a better bonding.
I just can't get the basic concepts/ingredients to stick in my head without that recipe.
Take omelets. Just beaten eggs, fold over filling like meats and vegetables.
But I just now had to look up a recipe on the internet to try and remember if I need to add milk or cream.
But then I remembered I don't add milk or cream, that's for scrambled eggs. How much? A teaspoon? 6 gallons? Stove temperature hi, med, low? Can't remember off the top of my head. If I just decided to randomly make some eggs without a recipe, I'd end up with a souffle that hatches a live chicken wearing a sombrero.
I reload my own ammunition. I can remember how much of which brand of powder to use with which primers, which brass, which bullets, proper seating depth, and which cycles best in which firearm, and fps per load.
Even if I haven't done it for 2 years.
But I can't remember if I should add milk to scrambled eggs, omelets, or both.
I can follow recipes, I can experiment, but I can't really "cook."
The steps and ingredients just don't stick in my head, even with practice.
I am good with a grill.