Screw trying to be good at cooking, just have fun.
Your creations (or abominations) will taste better faster. Trust me.
How do I know? Because until I had fun screwing up meals left and right, I didn’t get good at it. But after enough fun home-cooking fuckery, I took that fun and turned it into a 7-year career in the culinary world.
I get it. It’s hard to have fun when you suck at something. But it’s easy with a bit of the right mindset. Follow my lead and let’s get weird with it.
These are my “rules” you should follow for having fun in the kitchen while you learn, grow, and still suck at it more than you want to:
Stop Doing This Shit:
1. STOP obsessing over your favorite Food Influencers or Famous Chefs.
First: They’re way better than you. Better than me too, don’t get your tits in a twist.
Second: Food Reels & TikToks aren’t recipes or inspiration; they are Food Flexes meant for someone to show off their skills. They are not designed to help you.
You’re not going to learn how to make a soufflé from a 60-second TikTok, ever.
2. STOP buying dumb, pricey shit.
Don’t go buying all the expensive stuff or “must have” gear people online or on TV tell you to. They’re paid to shill that shit. Some of it is helpful, but you need to learn why first.
Knives are different: dull knives are way more dangerous than sharp knives. Drop 50 bucks on a Victorinox Santuko, and a sharpening rod.
Do this shit instead:
1. DO Rock out with your cock out. Or jam out with your clam out.
Get a speaker or some headphones, and make a badass playlist of cooking jams. Mine fucking slaps, but you’ll do better listening to your music:
Chef4Fingers’ Booty Movin’ Rock Jams
2. IF you do drugs, DO the drugs.
Don’t do too many though, because you’re literally going to be playing with fire and knives. Which is fun as hell stoned, but obviously can be a quick path to a Darwin Award if you’re not careful.
Get loose, just don’t get stupid. Or get wrecked, I don’t care. No suing me if YOU end up Chef4Fingers-ing yourself.
Your call, I’m not your fucking mother.
3. DO Have a Taste-Bud Guniea Pig.
Misery Loves Company. But so does Delight. Invite people to try your science projects.
If your cooking experiment is good, you get to bask in your Big Dick Energy and rub your culinary prowess in your friends’ stupid faces. If it sucks, consider it revenge for whatever, and rub that revenge in your friends’ stupid faces.
Plus, the more of you there are to try an experiment, the more fun the next rule is to follow:
4. DO Eat your Failures.
Your tastebuds must train, young grasshopper. Also, wasting food is Bad Karma, so you should slurp down your shit sandwich anyway.
Make fun of the flavor abortions you’re tasting. But DO NOT make fun of yourself for trying. Jokes are fun, self-loathing is for twats.
Consider what went wrong, troubleshoot, and then try again.
(Caveat: If it absolutely tastes like an actual Shit Sandwich, ditch it and go get Taco Bell)
5. DO Cheat.
From Scratch cooking everything is exhausting, and even I only ever do it to get laid.
Buy a frozen pizza and add a bunch of goofy shit on top of it. Take some Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese and add some andouille sausage. Shit like that.
Doctoring up pre-made stuff TOTALLY counts as Kitchen Play; I’ve seen people make Top Ramen look better than trendy NYC soup dishes.
6. DO ‘A.B.D.A.’ (Always Be Dicking Around)
Some days you can’t truly experiment.
Groceries ain’t cheap. And kids (if you have them) can be assholes that don’t appreciate your Culinary Island of Dr. Moreau. Some days are for Dino Nuggets, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add some garlic and whiskey to a bottle of Sweet Baby Rays.
7. DO Ask Experts (that actually give a fuck about helping you)
Finally, follow reddit.com/r/askculinary on Reddit. I did this shit on a professional level for 7 years and I still learn something new every time I poke my head in there.
You might even find me commenting, look for u/twerkinmerkins (google what a Merkin is, it’s hilarious).
Those are my “rules”. I put them in quotes because I’m a rule-breaker myself, but not a hypocrite.
I emphatically endorse you telling me to go fuck myself and doing it however you want. Just go do it.
Chef4Fingers is an idiot who can cook a steak blindfolded, though that isn’t how he lost the pinky-finger. He can be found here on Medium, and on Twitter as TheChef4Fingers.
