Let me get that out there right away. I have a few staples I run to whenever anyone needs a meal, but generally speaking, if I were to describe my cooking style it would have to be "pathetic." I cook the same few things over and over again, and I try to mix it up once in a while with limited success.
But today I am adventurous. I decide to take out my crock pot and some random stew recipes, throw everything together with some actual meat and veggies, and see what sticks to the wall. I flip through my options and go for the Beef Stew and Beer recipe. I chop, cut, slice and dice the few ingredients of spices, beef, onion, mushrooms, bay leaf, and beer. When I look into the crock pot, I am unhappy at what I see. The mixture seems lacking somehow.
I open the fridge and start taking things out to add: carrots, potatoes, Hosin sauce, Worcestershire sauce, some more beer (and then I drink the rest of the bottle), etc. I am in maniacal mode, throwing things in that sound good like paprika and extra bay leaves. I cook the concoction for hours, add some small pearl onions, then decide to thicken the sauce with a cornstarch mixture. I add some Gravy Master for flavor and coloring.
Honestly, I am not a cook. This cannot possibly end well.
My eldest stops by on his way home from the train (the station is across the street), and he claims it smells good in the house. I convince him to try a bit of the stew with me while I prepare to taste my own bowlful.
Damn. I mean, DAAAAAMN.
This is the best damn stew I have ever tasted in my entire life. I polish off three bowls full of the stuff without even coming up for air. This stew tastes better than the family recipe I slave over, better than the giant batches I haul to lacrosse games to share with the players and their families at post-game dinners. In short, this is the greatest recipe ever thrown together.
Except that I cannot remember it because I threw the stew together rather randomly.
This is the way my life goes. When I create something horrible for dinner, everyone remembers; when I create something wonderful for dinner, I can't remember shit about how I made it.
I do have the original recipe I started with, and I am reasonably certain that I would work on autopilot if I were to make it a second time. In the meantime, I am not a cook nor am I a culinary genius. I'm just someone who got lucky in the kitchen. Wait. That didn't happen, either. I mean, I got lucky with the recipe. Wait. Strike that. I had good fortune in the combination of ingredients in the crock pot.
Damn. And I do mean DAAAAAAMN.
