Cooking is an art. Cooking is also a passion and a discipline respected the world over. And soooo many of us are doing so much of it wrong. We all don't have to be a famous celebrity chef to master the art, heck we don't even have to master the art, but we could take a few pointers here and there. Small pointers can often turn into scrumptious dinners and literal life savers.
Redditor u/MomosOnSale wanted chefs to help us out with a few things when cooking by asking.... Redditors who cook, whats the biggest 'no no' thing in cooking?
Do not mix.....
Do not mix hot cooking oil and cool sink water! I saw a girl burn the hell out of herself because she didn't listen to the Home Ec. teacher. She threw her hot oil in a sink with some cool water running. Boom! Sprayed hot oil all over her arm and neck. Let your oil cool folks. XxVerdantFlamesxX
Sam the Cooking Guy....
Cooking with extra virgin olive oil over high heat. PM_GUITAR_PICKS
There is a YouTube channel called Sam the Cooking Guy and he taught me about using avocado oil rather than olive oil. Olive oil (and vegetable oil and others) have a lower smoke point and can impart flavor into the food, when you may not want it. Avocado oil is "neutral" (adds no flavor) and has a higher smoke point allowing you to (for example) sear meat more easily. UniqueConstraint
No Panic.
Never and I mean never panic if you start a fire on accident, you need to be calm enough to know if you have to smother it (oil or grease fires) or grab the extinguisher. Panicking can get your house burned down. nippynip345
My mom fell asleep while making fries and woke up to a house full of smoke. She then threw a polyester blanket over the pot full of burning oil which burned the whole kitchen down. Should've just put a lid on the pot... but now she got a brand new kitchen covered by insurance lol. lanolena
Peppers....
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Learned this the hard way: don't throw fresh chili peppers into a hot pan unless you want to pepper spray the whole house! sriracha_everything
Non-Stick....
Coming anywhere near my non-stick pan with metal. If you scratch my pan I will scratch your soul. o0oO0o0Oo00oOoo00i
My brother is really good about this. And then when he washes a nonstick pan you can hear the scratching from the brush against the pan two rooms away. And then he wonders why his nonstick pans only last ~6 months or so. jhnna
tasty....
TASTE. AS. YOU. GO. KE5TR4L
My raw chicken never tastes very good but I'm sure lll find a good bird one day. Banshu
Be kind to Pasta....
Don't rinse your pasta. neverpeedinthepool
Pasta should never, ever be rinsed for a warm dish. The starch in the water is what helps the sauce adhere to your pasta. The only time you should ever rinse your pasta is when you are going to use it in a cold dish like a pasta salad or when you are not going to use it immediately
Everything else I read here seemed like common sense... But I guess I've been doing pasta wrong my whole life! HoboBeered
Try Anything.
Feeling like its to hard or being afraid to experiment with stuff. Obviously don't try something totally new when your cooking for guests but don't feel like failing means you suck. If you mess up learn from it and move on, its not the end of the world. DingleMyBarry
Never Directly.
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Never pour spices directly into a steaming pot on the stove. The spices will congeal in their containers from the moisture introduced. Instead put the spices in a separate side container then add to a steaming pot. Reddit
Glass cutting boards.
Glass cutting boards. Like seriously, just GTFO.
And in a similar vein, dangerously dull knives. I've seen some real bludgeons in other people's kitchens; no wonder they hate prep work. BattleHall
I once watched the owner of a restaurant I worked, pick up my personal high dollar chef knife and start chopping things straight on top of the stainless prep table with no cutting board at all. Needless to say, I lost my mind. poo_finger
Cooking Ted Talk.
Chef for 10 years, here's some good things to keep in mind when cooking at home.
- Clean as you go. It minimizes clutter and mess and makes everything easier.
- Sharpen your damn knives, seriously, dull knives are dangerous.
- Blenders are not just for smoothies, use them for sauces and your life will be changed.
- Please stack your fridge appropriately so cross contamination doesn't happen. Veggies and fruit on top, also eggs is fine, beef, fish, poultry. Chicken juice will contaminate raw veggies so quick.
- You don't need a knife block. I'm a chef for a living, I butcher 10-20 ducks a week and I have 6 knives? Even that is just cause I'm very particular. Your average home chef needs 3 at most. A standard lengths chef knife, a paring knife, which most home chefs never use from what I've seen, and I medium size blade for veggies can be nice.
- Label and date when you open stuff and keep it near the front. Keeping it near the front is most important as it helps encourage you to remember, "Ah yes, I have this kale that I should use" before you open something else.
- Olive Oil can go bad, lots of people think it can't, but it can.
- Canned stuff isn't the worst, just mix it with fresh stuff
- Diversify what ingredients you're using. Most Americans and Europeans cook with the same 20 things? Every time you go to the grocery store pick up a new ingredient and try it out! Beets? Amazing. Like mushrooms? Try oyster mushrooms instead of generic shiitakes. Like onions? Grab a leek. Seriously, CHANGE IT UP.
- wading in to more professional territory but try some Fermentation. Lots of great stuff out there but I'd recommend kimchi. If you wanna get serious buy the Noma Guide to Fermentation and actually read it. Best $30 you'll ever spend.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. bendingriver
Sparks Should Fly.
Cutting with a dull knife. Get yourself a sharpener, even if it's a cheap one. NerbleBurfs
I used to suck at sharpening knives and this is exactly what I would do every fishing season. The local bait shop would have cheap fillet knives on sale every year. And every year I'd buy a new one because it's sharp until next year.
Just a year or so ago, I got some good stones and learned via youtube how to properly sharpen a knife. What a game changer, and it saves me $4.99 a year. PM_meyourGradyWhite
The Klumped.
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Don't let your baking powder get clumpy. Tiny rocks of baking powder ruin anything you bake. dzastrus
Don't Muck.
For the love of God stop mucking about with whatever it is you're cooking. Unless it's something you specifically need to be mixing or stirring constantly, leave it alone! You'll never get proper color on things if they make more contact with your spatula than your pan. SorrySeptember
Not the hen.
Medium rare chicken. Works for steaks, but not for hen. thermonuclearmuskrat
Buffalo Wild Wings seems to think it's ok. EZKTurbo
Don't Crank.
Cranking the heat to reduce the cooking time will leave you with a burnt outside and an under-done inside. mkicon
Can I give you my mother-in-law's number? You don't have to be polite. She is ALWAYS on the run and never has enough time to cook, yet ALWAYS insists on cooking meals that take 3x more time than she has available, so she shortcuts the hell out of every meal and they always turn out horribly.
Just this weekend the family went to an apple orchard for most of the day and we were going to eat dinner at a nearby friend's house. Instead of doing the logical thing, like planning a dinner that doesn't need to cook all day or hell, something CRAZY like just ordering pizza, she decides she wants pulled pork. So she throws the pork in the slow cooker and plugs it into a power inverter in their car and then leaves it in there for 5 hours, 1 of which was driving and and 4 of which were with it parked in the parking lot, with the ignition turned off and therefore no power to the inverter.
Of course when we got to the friend's house this was all revealed to me - she was saying how the pork didn't cook and trying to figure out how we could quickly cook it. She said she thought it would just run off the battery in the car.
Infuriating. Left4DayZ1
Storage.
Incorrectly storing ingredients - seriously, you can get ill if you let raw chicken juice drip on your salad in the fridge. Then, cut meat and veg on separate boards. symes
Cross-contamination is such a huge deal in cooking. Like no, you can't cut veg on the same board you just cut a raw steak on, you trying to make everyone sick??
Edit: Okay, to clarify, steak wasn't a good choice for examples, chicken is the more obvious one due to salmonella. And yes, if everything is being cooked right after, so long as everything is cooked to the right temperature, it's fine. Just be sure to wash the cutting board thoroughly and sanitize your tools. parthaenus9556
Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking is available here.
When a friend insists we travel to certain cities because we would "just love it," they're setting the bar pretty high.
And a city can also boast a rich history or an attraction that makes us curious enough to find out what makes it so appealing.
But, alas, when we finally reach the destination, it's never exactly what we thought it would be.
Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor tshirtguy2000 asked:
"What city is overrated?"
These are not officially real cities but they do have a rotating population.
It's Always A Party There
"Party city."
"As a former slave associate at party city. I 100% agree."
Lotsa Crime
"Cabot Cove, the murder capital of the world."
"Sure, the murders are all solved, but would you really want to live in a city with that much, easily solved, crime?"
– Andvare
Neighbor To Springfield
Shelbyville. Those f'kers steal trees from neighboring cities.
the simpsons episode 25 GIFGiphyThese were once considered destination cities but their popularity eventually took a nose dive.
Not Pair-A-Dice
"Atlantic City. Venture a few blocks off the boardwalk and it's incredibly depressing. Very clearly an area exploited by the big casinos while the locals have been driven to absolute poverty, while they still force a smile to work the shops that are required for the tourist traffic."
– juanzy
Lots Of Water
"Niagara Falls, Canada. I grew up there. Mayor pumps most of tax $ to casinos and tourism with flashy vegas-esque attractions."
Meh Beach
"Myrtle Beach. I'm not even saying that it has a good reputation, I'm just saying that any shred of positive thinking about it makes it overrated."
Where A Creek Is An Exciting Attraction
"Lamb's Grove, Iowa. It's not the paradise on earth that people always say it is. Don't get me wrong, it's got great Chinese food but the motel 6 is meh at best."
– shah357
Impressions for these cities fell far below expectation.
Do-Bye
"Dubai. It's the clickbait of the world. 'We have the biggest/tallest/most expensive YOU WON'T BELIEVE when you see THIS...' It's hot as f*k, everything's a man-made tourist trap; labor exploitation and racism are rampant, and they try so hard to prove to the world how modern and Westernized they are. Really, it's just government propaganda."
Truth be told, many cities can be overrated.
It just depends on a person's experience, or a resident's perspective about what it is about the location they live in that is nothing worth writing home about.
If I had to choose, I would say Las Vegas is overrated, but that's because there is nothing in Sin City that is of personal interest to me.
I may be severely judged for my opinion, but that is a gamble I'm willing to take.
Redditor William84000 asked:
“Women of reddit, what question do you have of men that you'd really like an answer to?"
His question started an informative thread for women to ask men the questions they've been wondering and receive honest, real-life answers.
Ouch...
“How long does it take to recover if you've been hit in the balls?” Snowy-avocado
“Anywhere from 5 minutes to literally turning to dust like we were Thanos snapped.” secondhand_organs
dust whirls GIFGiphy“The Big Dumb Object...”
“I've always wanted to know: why do you like loud machinery so much? For older men it's mowers, leaf blowers and such. For younger men, it's modified cars and motorbikes. What's the deal with the loud machines?” marshmellow_bunnyx
“Power and tools. Tools are a thing that gets stuff done, and they are loud because they contain the natural essence power of violent explosions and fire. Most men like powerful things, instead of powerful people.”
“In sci-fi, this is called 'The Big Dumb Object', and is pretty much a trademark of sci fi books written by men” Connect-Zebra7173
To shave or not to shave?
“Does body hair on a woman bother you that much?" reillydean28
“Leg/arm hair? Don't even notice. Armpit hair? Not my thing but not my choice/decision. Pubic hair? I'd prefer not, but it's not going to stop me from getting the job done." wHUT_fun
It’s a power and control thing...
“Why send a d*ck pic?" stavinlawrence
“I think for most men it's a power dynamic thing. Either it gets them off or it just makes them feel in control."
“Then I assume there's the added bonus of if she likes it she might send a nude back. But these losers have a greater chance of buying a "get bigger penis pills" that actually work before a girl appreciates an unsolicited nude." InertialEclipse
"Do you notice the little things?”
“Do you notice the little things about women like a new hair cut, when they wear makeup or a nice outfit?” xforeverlove22
“I can't speak for everyone but for me, nope. Not at all. My uncle had a moustache for like 20 years and one day decided to shave it off. I didn't notice it. I noticed there was a weird atmosphere around me like ‘come on, say something’, so I small talked with him.”
“A few hours later after he left they asked me if I seriously didn't notice that his moustache was gone. My answer was ‘What moustache?‘ And makeup would definitly fly over my head.” PleaseTakeThisName
Lets just not touch people without permission...
“What things have women done that make you uncomfortable?" charloget
“Had a few grab my junk at random. Even had a couple that just forced a kiss on me. I don't usually experience women trying to pick me up, but the few times I did was never great. It was either negging, overly sexually aggressive and always in a group." bahamabanana
On today's episode of sink of float...
“Do penis' float like a buoy? I heard they do but have never been able to verify it.” TheFantasticV
“I mean it's buoyant but it can't really do much besides lazily sorta half float there. Still amused the f**k out of my wife to learn.” secondhand_organs
GiphyEveryone just wants to be loved...
“What makes you feel loved?” linedizzy
“A compliment, a hug or a kiss we don't have to initiate.” Nuitari8
Plastic surgery?
“Do guys care if women get cosmetic procedures done?” dookieconductor
“I don't necessarily care about the work itself, I'd be more concerned about understanding why she felt like she wanted to get it done and help her feel body positive for whatever work has been done or if she feels like she needs work.” -notjosh-
Math will kill a mood everytime...
“What does it feel like when you're having sex and you're trying not to 'get there'? Is it frustrating? What do you do/think about to keep it from happening?" uhohoreolas
“I sometimes do math like 333*3... But often I am fine with just controlling things to focus mostly on her pleasure instead of mine. Tho sometimes she is excited and ends up moving in unaccounted ways while I am a hair away and there is no stopping it. I definitely don't find it frustrating. It is still very enjoyable." Fkire
Some of these Q&A's were unexpected but now we know! This important thing here though is knowing it's ok to ask questions sometimes.
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