Confidence in cooking

Tonight I made myself broiled tilapia from the freezer, with a cucumber-tomato salad that I made up on the spot. I even put it on a slightly-nicer-than-routine plate in anticipation of photographing it to share on social media. Then I devoured it before taking the opportunity. I may know a thing or two about cooking, contrary to what I've been told.

My ex is a very good cook. I have to give him that. I spent four years in his kitchen, listening to him provide soundbite instructions and tidbits about how flavor works. I always wanted to help. When I offered, he suddenly became too involved in what he was doing to talk about it, and I couldn't intuit what needed to be done. The result was that he always cooked by himself. When we had a small kitchen, my habit was to "get out of the way."

Having admitted early on that I didn't know much about cooking, that truth became magnified over the course of our relationship. It grew from a lack of experience and basic knowledge to a complete inability to cook anything without disaster. The tiniest mistakes were used as evidence of my ineptitude. Rather than teach me, he chose to become the sole chef in our shared kitchen. My culinary efforts were limited to baking pies, which was a demonstrated skill. Once our roles were established, he berated me for not sharing enough of the household duties.

Tonight while I cooked, I reminded myself of little lessons I picked up. I drizzled the tilapia in olive oil and seasoned it with salt, black pepper, white pepper, and paprika. Always season your meat--and leave this simple so it doesn't clash with the vegetables. While that broiled, I sliced the cucumber and grape tomatoes as thin as I could, then added a tiny spoon of minced garlic and some diced white onion. There was no seasoning in the salad except salt, because salt is a flavor enhancer and it draws fluid out, which added juice to the salad and made it more dressing-like. When the cooking time suggested by the tilapia package passed, I checked the fish and found that it was not yet cooked in the middle, so I let it go. Even without a timer, I knew when the fish was thoroughly cooked.

I need to rebuild my confidence by doing the things he told me I couldn't do.  I can recognize and accept that some of the things I learned from him were positive. I know way more about cooking now than I did when we got together.