Red Green Repeat Adventures of a Spec Driven Junkie

Take Notes When You Cook

One of the best advice I read on cooking, especially when starting, is to take notes.

This helps tremendously, especially when one does not cook that frequently (say, maybe annually?)

Things to take notes on:

  • recipe details (never know when you want to cook the same thing next year!)
  • weights of items used
  • preparation times
  • cooking start/end time
  • actual items
  • any substitutions used
  • and most importantly: results!

I usually cook during the holidays and reviewing my notes from the years before help me tremendously in:

  • deciding what to cook
  • shopping for items
  • preparing recipe

This advice on cooking I remember reading from the introduction of Alton Brown’s book: Good Eats Volume 1. He and The FoodNetwork dramatically improved the way I cook.