When does cooking stop counting as a basic day to day survival thing and start counting as a hobby?
When you are making everything from scratch, cooking becomes a hobby. You can make tacos and buy a salsa from the store and make some good tacos, but when you are making the salsa and thinking that you should add just a bit more of something, you are in hobby territory.
Smoking meats is a hobby. To get dinner ready, you start at 3am and tend the firebox all day. You try different rubs, woods, and techniques to make the product of your craft the best it can be.
Making pizza from scratch is a hobby. You make may make dozens of pizzas to just get the sauce, dough, or crust right.
Following a recipe to make something is not a hobby unless it is just a starting point in something you wish to refine and make your own.
Smoking meats is a hobby. To get dinner ready, you start at 3am and tend the firebox all day. You try different rubs, woods, and techniques to make the product of your craft the best it can be.
3am?!? What tiny little brisket are you doing at 225 to start that late? You’ve got to leave time for it to rest.
Ok, in all seriousness this is one of my main hobbies. By that I mean I do it often and I’ve stuck with it for years while other hobbies have come and gone. I’ve got a couple of offset smokers, a drum smoker that I built, and a pellet smoker when I don’t have the time to tend the firebox but still want to smoke something.
I said all that to say this: there are plenty of people who couldn’t give two shits about smoking meats who absolutely come ask me questions about it. Not because I’m the best, and not because they want it to be their hobby. But because I’m excited to talk about it. I also tend to bring full plates with me for my friends (and usually a couple of extras) so they get the benefit of having food.
I’ve also had women ask if they can come hang out next time I crank up the smoker. It’s an easy way in for someone who wouldn’t normally be confident enough to approach you.
When you worry about the brand of the olive oil you use and the cost, (over $100 per knife), of your kitchen knives. And your stove is a $4000 induction model with 2 ovens.
Source: My one Son-in-law. But the son-of-a-bitch CAN really cook!
Jokes on you, my knife cost me $40 in steel, wood, brass, and sanding belts because I make my OWN knives for my cooking.
You know, I think I might just have two hobbies and one saved me money on the other…
What about the cost of the grinder, HT furnace, drill and drill bits, and anvil and hammers? Are you really sure you saved any money? /jk
Keep banging them out!
I have two Kitchenaid mixers, and all my specialty tools. Cooking and baking can definitely be a hobby. We have the meals to survive. Then we have the shit I make that tskes a list of ingredients a mile long and all day to accomplish. But goddamm they are some great food.
Why would you need 2 mixers? That’s an honest question, I’m really curious.
That brings up an interesting thought.
Am I a cooking enthusiast because I spend time hunting/fishing/foraging wild ingredients? Many of my neighbors do some foraging and hunt and fish also. (I live on a lake in the middle of a very large forest). Or does the fact I made 10lbs of home smoked Canadian bacon in my own smoker this fall make me a cooking enthusiast? Maybe the breads I sometimes bake? Or the hand harvested and then parched over a wood fire wild rice I traded some of my bacon for from my one neighbor?
Am I a cooking hobbyist? Or am I just cooking to survive? Where is the line drawn?
There are a surprising amount of old kids that can’t even boil water for pasta. No one looking to date wants to date an old kid they need to take care of. (Some people do, but burnout is real)
Cooking qs a Hobby is not throwing together a Quick meal, but actually making an effort to cook. I.e. trying new things, cooking homemade pizza or even a roast.
“throwing together a quick meal” should have it’s own word.
“cooking” to me implies you’re working on something worth the time it takes, something you want to put effort into.
But when I just got home, nothing is easy to make and I have to throw something quick together, it doesn’t feel like really cooking to me. Like im half assing it, it should have a half-assed name.
My kids love these meals and I’m not sure why. I usually say “watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat!” and throw something together. Unless it’s a stir fry, they don’t like that. But a leftover baked potato becoming home fries with eggs and the half a tomato and half an onion from the fridge? The leftover cabbage going into the last handful of lentils for a stew? Casserole of leftover pasta, odds and ends with cheese, topped with bread crumbs? They are so happy with these oddball meals for some reason, and I think if you can make something with whatever you have, that IS a valuable cooking skill.
Exactly, I am always looking for new and exciting things to try. Also subscribe to shit ton of cooking channels on YouTube, and blogs. Also subscribe to a magazine subscription which I was exited that I could still do that. Also have a ton of cook books and always looking for more.
When you start to have to worry about them finding out you’ve out-pizzad the hut.
I placed the thing in a plate. It’s plated now.
But yeah, I get your point.
