cooking for one

The other night, I decided to cook some pork.  I've been experimenting with country-style ribs, which are a cut of meat I don't fully understand, but I'm getting there.  I cut them off their bones and tossed them into a pan.  Things started getting a little crazy.

I had salted and peppered (squarely) the pork, as a wise chef must, and the oil and onions were dancing excitedly when the meat hit the metal.  The sizzling began, and oh, how it sizzled.  It sizzled beautifully.

The juices of the pork invaded the pan, and mixed with the onion slurry, forming a marvelous au jus.  But I was not there for jus. I was there to cook flavor right into the pork.  I knew what I had do.

Reaching below the sink, I carefully withdrew my secret weapon.  Perhaps, in your cooking (and baking!), you have come across an ingredient so powerful, so intimidating, and so fiendishly inculpatory that you have opted to use it in every single recipe, forever.  If not, I have news for you:  distilled white vinegar is amazing.

I poured several dollops into my pan, delighting in the smells that arise.  Cooking pork for long tends to toughen it, but I needed to get the heat high for a while in order to cook those tasty juices back into the meat.  The solution was to add something that would help break down the meat a little bit in advance, to tenderize it sufficiently that it might not be a chore to eat.  You could also use lemon juice, but where's the kick?

My vinegar tore into the flesh of the pig, opening it up like a pore cleanser to allow more wonderful flavor to be absorbed.  I watched, gleefully transfixed even in the midst of cutting potatoes, as the meaty juices cooked back into their origin.

The meat simmered in its pan. The potatoes were cut, then fried, then fried again.  The meal was complete.

This was all done without a recipe, without any timers.  I just watched, and tasted, and felt it out.  But, and this is crucial:  I had done similar things before, all with a recipe!  It was only years of experience cooking like this that has given me the sensibilities to eyeball it.

When you don't know anything, you need to work extra hard and prepare to succeed.  But when you're well-versed in a task, you can just kind of wing it, and let the spirit of improvisation guide you.  You know that things can't really go that bad.  You know that you've made it this far, and all your fears were ill-founded.  The pork isn't going to burn.  Things are going to be okay.

It's a feeling, I think, that only comes with time.  But I'm starting to feel it, more and more often, outside of the kitchen.

The meal was delicious, because I trusted myself.