Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
One of the reasons cooking is hard is because it requires persistence. Persistence isn't difficult in & of itself; what's difficult is our emotional reactions to failure after failure, because it's easy to feel that it's too hard, that we're not good at it, that we should quit, that it's not for us, etc., when in reality, it just takes time to learn what works & what doesn't work. Like, I'm big on cooking with the Instant Pot, and my approach now is simply to expect every recipe I try to take at least 3 batches to get right...the first time to follow the recipe & see how it comes out, the second to tweak & adjust things to see if I can get better results (if needed), and the third to test out the final procedure to make sure I can replicate it. Sometimes the second step has to be repeated multiple times...like, cooking a solid mac & cheese in the IP took a bunch of tries to get the flavor where I wanted it.
That's why I say making bread is about developing a relationship with flour - you've gotta go on a bunch of "dates" (i.e. cooking sessions) & figure out how things works, and you have to keep that relationship alive by continuing to make recipes you've done before & also trying out new ones. While I'm no master baker by any means, I do have some pretty killer recipes for bagels, English muffins, chocolate-chip cookies, giant soft pretzels, toast bread, etc. that I've discovered & gotten good at over the years. One of the videos that really cemented the idea of sticking with something until success was achieved was this excellent TED Talk by Angela Duckworth, who homed in on the key factor of success simply being a willingness to keep trying until you get what you want. While that sounds obvious written out, it is absolutely not obvious when you've in the midst of it & have made say half a dozen failed loaves of sourdough bread & are all kinds of frustrated, lol. Because eventually, it "clicks" & then you "get" the process & it becomes as second-nature as tying your shoe, because you understand how the workflow for successful results goes, you know?
