Overcoming Phobias And Insecurities Has Felt Empowering and Liberating
Learning to swim and cook have been bigger deals to me than they are for most people
I don’t cook a lot, but I promised my wife I would try to cook at least once a week. Last month, I tried to cook a baked fish recipe. It was actually pretty easy — I needed to coat the fish in a mix of bread crumbs, mayo, and mustard, then put it in the oven for a couple of minutes.
I followed the ingredients to a tee, but made one critical mistake — instead of measuring exactly how much salt and pepper I needed with measuring spoons, I did what literally every other cook I’ve seen do: I estimated and eyeballed how much salt and pepper the fish needed. I coated the fish in salt, listening to my gut on where to stop instead of using a measuring spoon.
As you can imagine, the fish was incredibly salty, to the point where it was almost inedible. Every other part of the fish turned out fine, but I had to eat it with rice so the salt could spread around. My wife could not eat it because it was way too salty for her, and when I told her what I did, she said people I’ve seen cook, including her and my parents, are experienced and have cooked hundreds if not thousands of meals. They can just eyeball how much salt a particular dish needs, but…
