Looking for advice on cooking and food is my lifelong pursuit.  I love learning new techniques, skills, ingredients, recipes, and methods.  The advice that had has the most impact on my cooking is to use the best quality ingredients that you can find.  Starting any dish with the freshest, most authentic ingredients will vastly improve the flavor, nutrition, and ultimately the enjoyment of the food.  I’m not a one-stop shopper because I like to buy local and seasonal when possible.  So, I shop farmers markets, local bakeries, meat markets, cheese shops, and other specialty food shops when I can.  I also shop at Costco and large grocery chains, looking carefully at ingredient lists, brands, and sourcing.  I’ve found that some of our favorite dishes and meals are ones made from just a few really outstanding ingredients (fresh fish with butter, salt, and pepper; roasted vegetables with olive oil and salt; black beans with garlic and onions on brown rice).

I think there are intuitive cooks who can easily put a dish together without a recipe because they know what works together, and what doesn’t — and I wish I was that kind of cook — but I am definitely a recipe follower.  So, the best advice I ever got about cooking is to read a recipe through carefully, especially when cooking something for the first time.  This may seem like obvious advice, but there are times I have just skimmed a recipe and missed steps, ingredients, or notes about the cooking time.  It has made for considerable frustration more times than I want to admit.  So, I now like to remind others to read the recipe all the way through!