improve my cooking skills

Last night, I tried new recipe #1: a berry cobbler. Not sure why I started with this, since desserts have always been too close to chemistry for me—get the proportions of certain key ingredients off, and it goes horribly wrong. Difficulties exacerbated by the fact that I had to cut the recipe to about 3/5. A metric cobbler. But it turned out pretty good.

Advice on cobblers: put a cookie sheet larger than the pan itself in the rack under the cobbler pan, to catch the bubbling berry goo. I didn’t think of this until I heard the telltale sizzling sounds of filling carmelizing on the floor of my oven. Now I get to clean the mess up.

Back in my early 20’s, I was the best cook among my peers. Of course, in your early 20’s, that isn’t that hard. I just haven’t put the energy into culinary creativity that I used to. I bought a new cookbook to get me inspired, and I’d like to try out one new recipe a week. If I hate them, or if the effort-to-payoff ratio isn’t great, I’ll just move on to the next one.