Cooking

Cooking is not reading directions on boxes and preparing the contents. Recipes are not cooking in the same sense that sheet music is not actually music. The art of cooking does not involve secret recipes or grandma’s wisdom (although grandma probably has a lot to teach you). The difference between food you enjoy and food you survive on is the difference between cooking and simple preparation.

By no means can the complicated art of cooking be explain in short terms, but there are a few basic principles that will help every one enjoy more fulfilling food, even the kind that comes out of a box.

Wine

Wine is not elitist, no matter what anyone tells you. If you have trouble believing that, go to Spain. Spaniards sometimes refer to their country as “la tierra de vino,” or, “the land of wine.” In a Spanish restaurant, a glass of wine costs the same as a glass of water. If anyone knows wine, it’s the Spanish.

For those of you who don’t know, Spain is a country in Western Europe. It’s the country where Spanish people are from. It happens to be next to Portugal and France. All those Spanish people in your country that your government is trying to kick out? They’re actually not Spanish at all, unless your country happens to be England.

The trouble with most wine connoisseurs is that they are the sorts of people who use words like “connoisseur” without cracking a smile. Wine is not, and was not, about the social elite. If you wear a monocle and carry a pocket watch, you are not grounded enough to properly enjoy wine.