I was a decent cook before. I could follow a recipe, modify it slightly -- I could tell if the dish required tweaking: less salt, more breadcrumbs, that sort of thing -- and it would turn out well, but that was the extent of my culinary flexibility. I had always been more of a baker, and in baking, recipes many times need to be followed to the letter to come out properly.
It wasn't until my late-20s when someone told me he was surprised I relied on recipes (he didn't) that it occurred to me to attempt to cook without them. He didn't mean it as an insult -- I'm very creative in many ways, and it just seemed to him that I would be inventive in the kitchen. I didn't take offense, but I did take it as a challenge.
Playing in the kitchen without a guided approach was daunting, however. I remember one night in my teens, my mother quickly made a wonderful new chicken dish from scratch, with no recipe, only using what she had on hand. A girlfriend who had stayed for dinner and I both were amazed -- having that kind of knowledge or ability seemed unattainable. Although I was a more experienced cook by the time his offhand comment was made, I still had the notion that I needed a cookbook in front of me to be able to make anything appetizing. Yet the gauntlet had been thrown.
The few times I initially did try to make something of my own creation were disasters. My first attempt at a homemade marina on the fly was inedible; into the trash it went. Bruschetta came out soggy and sad. Pork chops were dry, bland and boring. And so it went. Failures simply reinforced the perceived need for someone else's established recipes.
Jump ahead a few years, and eliminate all products containing wheat, barley, oats, rye, casein and soy, as well as salmon and avocado. Relied-upon recipes were no longer viable options, and meals were humdrum. Plain burgers are not exciting, let me tell you, and having rice pasta day after day gets very old. Eating out was no better; if even I could get a meal safe to consume, I generally could make a better one at home that also was cheaper and less stressful to find.
Necessity truly is the mother of invention, I suppose. Unless I wanted to keep eating the same tired things, I had to revisit the way I looked at food and create my own dishes.
I challenged myself to get inventive. Dietary restrictions do not mean a person's palate is undeveloped; I appreciate good food now just as much as before, maybe more so. Even though I have to eat gluten-free, etc., I still want to have nice meals.
An eventual small success in the kitchen encouraged me to continue, and fortunately, I had started having more successes than not. I finally became comfortable with the process of trial and error in creating my own recipes. It has become fun to evaluate what works, what doesn't. Don't get me wrong: I still want every meal to be perfect. It's just that a bad meal now doesn't mean abject failure; it simply means there's room for improvement.
I subsequently have had pizza crust turn out like glue. I've served bland chicken. Risotto has been something approaching tasteless. But for all those kitchen catastrophes, I've also had soaring triumphs completely of my own making, which, I might add, also exponentially outnumber the disasters. Meanwhile, with each of those unsatisfactory meals, I've learned something. The bad pizza crust taught me about the difference in oils and oven temperatures. Boring chicken reminded me about building flavor profiles. The risotto deemed OK instead of Great! indicated just how much the wine and chicken broth used in the dish influence the final outcome. All good lessons learned.
I do find it ironic that I'm a better cook now, under far more limitations, than I was when I had any and all ingredients at my disposal. Perhaps without restrictions, though, I might not have felt the need to get creative.
I'm slowly building a collection of dishes. You could say last night's dinner represents where I am in my culinary journey. Shepherd's pie is a hearty comfort food, perfect for crisp fall evenings, and this one is entirely of my own making.
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