Creativity and cooking

Before I came to the US, I had never cooked or paid any attention on my cooking skill. Once, I've been here for a year, cooking is the second best skill that I've learned other than MBA classes. I found that cooking is not just about finding something to feed yourself. Cooking is a process that combines art, creativity, science together.

I remembered that I first realized to myself that I need to cook when I felt sick of eating American food and I couldn't afford to eat out everyday. So I began to teach myself how to cook. Interest was a great starting point for me.

The reasons that I said that cooking is involve with creativity, art and science are because
- You need to use your imagine on what do you want to eat that day and what resources ( ingredients) do you need. I even used a brainstorming technique sometime to complete the list of possible food that I can cook and I also want to eat.
- Art is about end result and appreciation that you get from cooking. I also proud of myself when I cooked something that it reflected what I did imagine in my head in the beginning. Because, I stay in the US for too long, it's hard for me to remember the real taste of Thai food so I need to use some imagination to fulfill that gap to make the taste complete. Joying from eating food which I created myself is such a great feeling ( however, just in the case that it tastes delicious) I also like to invite my friends to join a party. I love to treat them with real authentic Thai taste. It's a good feeling when somebody try your food and the express what do they think about your work. This is similar to art or when artist invite people to come to see his works.
- Science part of the cooking is about recording and redoing the same thing over and over but still getting the same result. Personally, I like to cook as an art which mean I use my own feeling and creativity to add ingredients into the dish that I cook but something, the end result is not what I was expected. It can be too sweet or salty or it's not as good as last time. So in order to reproduce same good work, I need to record things and technique. I use my email as my own database on how to cook each dishes. It make my life easier. For example, when I found a perfect recipe, I'll type it and email it to myself. After that when I want to recreate that dish, I just search on my email and there it is, my perfect recipe!

So far, I enjoy spending two or three hours in the kitchen. Time really fly in there. During the cooking, it also clear my mind and make me ready to do some work with full stomach.