I am not a stamp collector

“I like cooking, and I’m decent at it, mostly because it’s less about following directions and more about having a sort of loose idea of what things go together, how long they take to cook, and what they look like when they’re done. I dislike cookbooks and regard recipes as suggestions, not rules.”

I like baking for the reasons the author (and my boyfriend) doesn’t.  It’s rules and science.  You put several very different things together and through blending and heat they become something new and better.  When cooking I usually struggle to understand how adding x salt or y vegetable will actually make things taste.  I struggle to modify recipes on my own.  If I don’t like it I just assume I never will and don’t try recreating and adjusting.

Also, in baking, there’s often a step where they tell you to cream together the butter and sugar.  If you don’t sneak a taste of just this then you need to reassess your life.