Welcome to “For Whom the Bell Pepper Tolls,” a collection of recipes, as well as random musings on food and cooking. The content found in this blog is meant to be entertaining (mostly self-entertaining), but it is also meant to be practical. It is meant to serve as documentation of the lessons I’ve learned the hard way and the advice I wish someone had given me over ten years ago when I first started figuring out how to plan and cook meals on my own. The content found in this blog is meant to help Future Me by serving as a single point of reference for the things I currently do from memory, but as Future Me will undoubtedly have no clue what Past Me is talking about, I will try to write these recipes and guides so that a stranger can follow them and find them useful. If you happen to be such a stranger who somehow stumbled upon this blog, then I hope you will find something helpful here.
Approach
My approach to most things, cooking included, is extremely practical. As someone who has moved several times over the past fifteen years, I try to minimize the number of gadgets I own and share Alton Brown’s scorn for “unitaskers” in most cases. You can get a better sense of what I mean by reading my guide on kitchen equipment. As such, my recipes will rarely call for specialized equipment, and I try to minimize the number of pots and pans used per meal.
Wherever it makes sense to do so, I include weight measurements for ingredients. This does not mean you need to be exact with the amount of each ingredient you use (unless you’re baking). Rather, I include the weight so that you can get a sense of what I interpret as a “medium” carrot or a “large” onion, as this type of descriptor is entirely arbitrary.
In most cases, I do not tell you how much salt to use if the purpose of the salt is only to season the food. I recognize and respect that everyone has a deeply personal relationship with salt, so I encourage you to taste and season as you cook. Use as much salt as you’d like and are comfortable with.
Finally, my approach as a home cook emphasizes flexibility and confidence in the face of ambiguity. You might start with a recipe, but as you gain experience and confidence, you should become more and more comfortable with pivoting when necessary. Read recipes as if they are templates. Understand the role of each ingredient or group of ingredients, and when you understand what role each ingredient is meant to play, you can confidently substitute one thing for another. With this skill, you can better take advantage of the produce that’s in season (or on sale at the grocery store) and also make better use of the odds and ends left in your fridge. Ultimately, my goal is to maximize my grocery budget, minimize the number of dishes I wash, minimize food waste, and, of course, eat well.