“How to Cook Without a Book” (Plus a recipe for Chicken with Sauternes, Fig, and Pistachio Pan Sauce)

Your Two Lazy authors have traveled very different routes to their love of food and cooking. I won't go into great detail here, since you can find our stories on our About page and in our first post, but the nutshell version is that Robin grew up cooking while I got my kitchen legs later in life. It wasn't until my thirties that I went through the transformation from a confused, though eager, recipe-follower to someone who's pretty comfortable and competent in the kitchen. I remember clearly that dawn-like period during which friends and family started referring to me as “a good cook.” Really? You're excited about coming over for dinner? You want this recipe? Why, this is an interesting development.

So what happened? Well first, I began to notice that some of the best and most inspiring dishes I encountered were also some of the simplest. It became clear to me that there didn't seem to be any direct relation between difficulty of recipe and enjoyment of meal. (This is, in fact, the guiding principle behind The Lazy Gourmet.) I also grasped a couple of basic rules—salt adds flavor, let the oil get hot, caramelize everything—that gave my culinary skills a boost. As I became more comfortable in the kitchen I cooked more, learned more, experimented more, got more positive feedback from my diners, and so on.

Around this time I picked up How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart, by the sexily-named Pam Anderson. The title alone told me it was exactly what I needed. The book's primary message is to time-constrained homemakers (offering game plans for nightly meal prep and lots of time-saving tips) but for me it was an ideal beginner's handbook. Instead of providing written-in-stone recipes, Anderson explains how to make basics like soup, pasta, frittatas, and pan sauces—and then suggests creative variations that can be made on each. She explains how to sear meat, describes the endless possibilities of the stir-fry, and stresses the rewards of homemade salad dressing. As a newbie cook, these tips and insights inspired me to think more creatively and loosen my dependence on instructions.

If you're teetering on the brink between culinary confusion and capability, How to Cook Without a Book might just give you the push you need. Here's one of my favorite dishes from the book. (Anderson explains the steps and techniques more instructively, but to be concise I've distilled it into traditional recipe format here.)