My philosophy to cooking is pretty simple.

Do what you want and play with your food.

I’m not a fan of rules and instructions that tell you that you MUST do this or you HAVE to do this, because otherwise it will be bad awful food.  Seriously, I call bullshit on that.  Do what you want.  Everyone is different and likes different things.  Just because one person likes their steak well-done doesn’t mean it gives you, the rare-steak-eater, the right to scoff and exclaim that what they are eating is shoe leather.  If you like your steak with blood running all over your plate, then do it.  If you like yours well done, then do it.  You’re the one eating it, so it only matters what you think.

This is what I like about cooking, the control.  I need to be in control of everything and with cooking I can do whatever I want.  If I want to pair garlic powder with powdered sugar for some type of seasoning on a slab of ribs, I can.  Hooray!  No food police are going to lock me up and tell me what a disgrace to cooking I am.  I am in control of the quality and quantity of ingredients.  If I want to make fried chicken sandwiches for dinner, I can feel good knowing that because I made it, it will be way better for us than something we ordered out.  Because I had control over everything that went into the dish.  This is a huge deal to me.

Cooking doesn’t have to be some great unknown that is difficult or extremely time consuming.  Yes some things are a little more complex to make and some things take more time, but isn’t that the case with everything in life?  Cooking is trial and error.  Some things work and some things do not.  I still make things that don’t taste good or didn’t come out quite how I expected them too.  It makes me grumpy and I start slamming stuff around the kitchen.  But I’ve learned something from that experience.  This and this don’t work for me.  Next time I’ll have to try that and see what happens.   And I keep plugging away until I can get it right.  And when I get it right, man that’s a great feeling for me.  Look, I did this and it’s awesome.

Play with your food, to me means experiment and take chances.  You’ll never know if you can make thanksgiving dinner if you don’t try.  You’ll never know if garlic powder and powdered sugar taste good together if you don’t test it out and see what happens.  Explore and experiment are the best things you can do.  It’s a learning experience that can result in a wider range of cooking knowledge and more confidence in the kitchen.  How can that be bad?