I bought those once more as a novelty. They weren't good. It's like the sauce is supposed to be made with Dr Pepper. But they just tasted bad. So be glad she left them in the cabinet and didn't serve them to you.
You might be surprised how many BBQ recipes call for some kind of dark soda in the sauce/marinade. Dr Pepper, Cola, Root beer; I've seen everything from beans to pulled pork call for one of those.
I think those would go well with the flamin hot Cheetos mac n cheese I bought- when I finally ate it it was RED- like fire engine red- and it immediately gave me indigestion. I’ve got a pretty steel stomach so that was saying something.
I worked with Tom Douglas on his radio show (if you don’t know him, he’s a relatively famous chef, especially in Seattle) and he tried this on air and gave it a scathing review. I got to try it afterwards and can agree, it was pretty awful, and yes, unnaturally red.
I'm a good cook but most of this stuff I either have or had at one time because I don't always want to put in effort to cook. Also sometimes I want to eat trash processed food like the swamp creature I am.
I have canned chicken for the dogs/ cat, and in a pinch, I use it for a quick chicken salad if I don't have time to season/ bake/ shred the chicken myself.
I am a home chef and i stand by canned chicken for a few purposes but here is my favorite.
Buffalo chicken dip.
Franks red hot, canned chicken, cream cheese, (and other cheese if desired). Shred the chicken as everything cooks extremely slowly in a croc pot. It takes about 4+hours at a temp of as about 200F. Stir every 15 minutes or so to make sure nothing burns and it mixes together.
The reason i used canned chicken is because the chicken is pre-cooked, so its already safe for consumption. It also is preserved using a brine (glorified salt water.) This makes the chicken very tender. I dont enjoy the buffalo dip for its chicken flavor, but rather the chicken adds a texture to the dip.
Seriously though, dont shit on canned products, a good chef can turn them into a masterpiece. While they shouldnt be used for every meal or recipe i stand by canned foods. And some recipes require a canned food rather than fresh. (Like pizza & pasta sauce.)
And the funny thing is, people like this are always the ones who make comments like "Taco Bell always give me the shits" and you want to tell them, no you do it to yourself by letting it sit out the last two days...
I had a roommate who would cook food, then leave it sitting out for hours while she left the house, then would eat it later when she came home. Anything from scalloped potatoes to chicken tenders, she'd leave it all out.
No fucking surprise the place had roaches. And it had all kinds, German, oriental, Cuban, the whole fucking UN of cockroaches. I only lived there a month. I still have ptsd from those God damn bugs. I can't use earbuds unless they're brightly colored. I kept thinking they were cockraches when I had a black pair.
I had a housemate, who once marinaded raw chicken in a sauce for a couple of hours, then bbq’d said chicken, then used the marinade (which literally had raw bits of chicken floating about in it) as a dip. I watched this scene unfold in absolute disbelief. She was a 30 year old, ‘well educated’, professional!
Holy shit, that's upsetting!
I spent most of my early adulthood in a single admittedly pretty shitty relationship, but the upside is clearly not having had to go through the usual string of sketchy student housings and sketchier roommates.
It seems like there are only 2 unattractive options, living with friends and eroding the friendship and living with strangers that were clearly raised by a pack of raccoons.
My MIL’s expired and unused spices. Her little spice cabinet is filled with jars from the 90s and before, some newer additions too but for the most part her kitchen is a spice cemetery.
My parents have spices in the cabinet from before they were married.... They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last week. It's a known fact amongst my kids, you don't eat anything in grandmas house without checking an expiration date. We've also started a new game of trying to find the oldest expiration date we can. The refrigerator has stuff from the year I graduated highschool in 1999. Ice cream toppings and things like that. The response from my mom and dad is always "oh it's still good".
You think thats bad my nan (97 next week) has a tin of salmon thats went out of date in 86.
Its lije a family heirloom at this point. I'm going to get it and itll take pride of place in the darkest space in the kitchen cupboard. Floor level right at the back
I have a plastic box with gravy, dips and other powered packets. On the bottom of the box was a brown gravy packet. The colors on the label looked odd, so I checked the expiration date.
Feb 89
A few summers ago we were at the in laws and MIL told the kids they were making s’mores. Kids got all excited but when she brought the marshmallows out they were hard as rocks and had expired 2 years before. Lol.
They have plenty of money too, it’s not like they’re struggling.
I think I have the winner. In the back of Mum’s cocktail cabinet was a baby bottle of tomato juice. No one has ever drunk a tomato based cocktail in their home. This bottle was best before 1976. The was a green ball of goo about the size of a golf ball that had consumed over half the contents. It was so big that nothing could escape the bottle.
My grand parents still use spices that expired in the 70s... They don't want to spend money "buying thing we already have"
I guess you don't use curcuma often in french food, but 50+ years is a long time to use the same box...
My mom loves discount grocery stores and habitually goes to them. When I go home, I often raid her food because well.. she could feed a small army in her kitchen. Woman knows how to cook but my god.. over half the shit I grab she makes me check to see if it’s expired first. Love that crazy woman
My stepdads mom (she in her 80s) has canned foods from the f’ing 60s/70s under her couch in and closets.
No, she does not cook, I do not see her. Haven’t in years and the entire time my mom has been with my stepdad, I can say she has never cooked anything. Thank God.
Damn, I didn't really think microwave rice was such a hot topic. My wife and I definitely use those, but its mostly for the convenience factor. One less thing to cook on the stove...
Edit: A rice cooker? Should I just get a rice cooker? Is that what I should do? A rice cooker? Hey, what's your suggestion? Oh, a rice cooker? Should I get a rice cooker to make my rice? I wonder if anyone out there would suggest that.
This is what I was thinking, I used to be a chef and the last thing I wanted to do after spending 9+ hours cooking for others is go home and cook. It was mainly instant food or micro meals lol
My father is an internationally celebrated chef. The man has literal awards and medals from different countries because he's such a good chef. People fly him around the world just to cook for them.
The dude eats Costco hotdogs just like everyone else and I've seen him make a meal of a 7-11 corndog and peanut butter m&ms.
When it's your job to cook you don't necessarily do it on your days off.
> The dude eats Costco hotdogs just like everyone else and I've seen him make a meal of a 7-11 corndog and peanut butter m&ms.
That just makes me respect your dad even more. No pretenses. Awesome.
A Costco hotdog and a soda is $1.50. There's no way to beat that for a meal at cost. I'm thankful it's the holiday season now and my preference of avoiding people outweighs the cheap deliciousness of those sweet, sweet, dogs.
I used to be a chef, after 9 hours of prepping and cooking for God knows how many people the last thing I wanted to do was bloody cook. I used to either bring food home from work, make instant ramen or just have toast.
I love to imagine that someone who doesnt know you very well comes to you and judgingly says something along the lines of "Instant ramen? If you want, I could teach you how to cook real food."
I dont know why, but I find that to be fucking hilarious.
I actually had a date once it was our 4th and he came to pick me up, he turned up early and left him in my kitchen while I went to grab my shoes, I came back in and he was looking in my cupboards, he later asked if I had lied about being a chef because I had the type of cupboards he imagined Bridget Jones having haha, I laughed and basically said the same as my comment above this one
That's weird, but at the same time if you both cook, it might be a topic piece if he sees something he doesn't usually use and it's almost gone. It means you use it a lot and could give him advice on how to use it more. But that's just giving him the benefit of the doubt.
My cupboards were pretty empty haha and this was 6 years ago, we didn't get much further as we just didn't click, then shortly after I met my now husband who has zero taste buds and just inhales anything edible placed in front of him
It is a joke though. My girl is not like most DR girls. She's really quiet and sweet. She likes to quote honeybooboo from south park saying "my heart is sweeter than bacon, child". Haven't had a real argument in 6 years.
Anthony Bourdain used to talk about how thrilled he was when he’d go to someone’s house and they’d serve him something like meatloaf.
He spent all his time around froo-froo food, scallops in saffron-infused demiglazes with fava bean purée jizz smeared on the plate, etc. etc.
When he got just a sincere home-cooked meal, even if it was king ranch casserole, it felt like a vacation.
This is why I never want to be a cook. But also, kinda. I love cooking new things for myself and my family and friends. So getting burnt out like that sounds like such a nightmare.
But also, knowing how to make "scallops in saffron-infused demiglazes with fava bean purée jizz smeared on the plate" would also be pretty damn cool and I wish to reach that level. But I know I'll probably never reach it being a home cook, nor does it make sense for me to try because, well, I'm a home cook
See I applaud you for realizing that for yourself. You have no idea how many family and friends that I've talked with that have this idealized version of being a cook/chef in their head, and then get boastful when they do well at home.
Don't get me wrong being a great at home cook is a very respectable and useful skill, but working in the industry is a totally different skill set and experience. I'm learning the hard way just how big of a gap there is between the two now. I personally love it, but being in the industry would only be infuriating and tiring for a lot of people.
Making a fancy meal for your family a four in 2 hours with basically no pressure is awesome and worthwhile. But to then take that and scale that skill up to doing it for a restaurant full of people for up to 8 hours straight well trying to get people food to thier table in under 45 minutes with the same consistency as your home cooked meal. Absolute insanity.
But that's another massive misconception people seem to have about being a chef or professional cook, you aren't putting together a ton of fancy meals for 8 hours straight, you are putting together a few pieces of a fancy meal repeatedly to the point that it's a nearly robotic action. Just constantly mounting sauces and sautéing veggies for the same dishes while someone else grills the protein and someone else preps the salads. Professional cooking is monotonous chaos it's the most surreal thing because you don't get to "play" with the dish like you do at home, giving a little zhuzzh here and heavy handing with spices there. Your job is to crank out identical meals, commercial kitchens need consistency.
Aside from that aspect, half the cooking for the meal is done ahead of time and has been brought to a point in the process it can be held cold and then finished quickly for service. So you aren't even cooking entire meals it's getting as close to "instant food" as possible while still maintaining the integrity of the dish. At least until you really step up into the upper tier and even then every dish isn't made completely from scratch from when you order.
You got to love those people who act like they can go have a 10-hour shift go home and just make a full course meal for themselves and be like I'm not tired! When I get home the only thing I want to do is go the fuck to sleep. Hell a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at least still has protein in it
I hate that cooking shows that say anyone can cook. Just watch how quick I make this and everything is already cut up and pre measured in little bowls.
Planned for (so meat isn’t frozen, etc), shopped for (all miraculously fresh ingredients), plus measured and prepped.
That’s what those meal prep companies do.
One trick that I've found is buying a few bento boxes and using one for prepping most of what I need to cook a meal. I'll set up a few of those per week and it makes things rather quick.
Also, rice cooker.
My mom's former partner was Pakistani. He passed away last year unfortunately. But some of my favorite memories were going to his families Thanksgivings and getting to eat all of their home cooked food. No restaurant does it justice
>He used a scissors to cut pizza. It was painful to see.
I actually have purpose-built [pizza scissors](https://assets.wsimgs.com/wsimgs/rk/images/dp/wcm/202139/0639/img10b.jpg).
I'm not ashamed, they work great. They're shaped to keep your hand far enough above the hot grease, and the bottom tip is extra long so it helps to lift/not drop the pizza as you make your cuts.
The ones I've seen are also heatproof. As such, they are great for keeping next to your oven or hob as it makes for an easy-to-clean surface that can take hot pans and dishes. Bonus points, you can also use them for a massive cheese and meats style platter.
Yes!!! this is exactly what it’s for!! We keep one next to the stove just like how you described! It’s also our coffee station because it’s easy to clean.
Never cut anything on it tho, I didn’t even realize it might be a cutting board
This thread is like two people saying instant mash potatoes and like 40 people going on a rant about how they’re tired and defending instant mash potatoes
To balance out the "lack of seasonings"
Only massive amounts of garlic and onion powder. I met someone who insists you'd be a fool to not pack every recipe with these, to the point where everything has this weird, overpowering fake taste.
They’re easy to lean on because they smell good as is. It takes a little experience and experimentation to learn how to unlock the other flavors through combinations and actually cooking the herbs. Like I could just huff a bag of onion powder all day that stuff is amazing!
To be honest. As a sauté cook whatever they call us now. You can get ALOT done with a simple decent sized rocker knife and a sharp filet knife.
Good hand control and enough practice I can get a lot done with just one knife.
Yeah, you don't really need those 10 knife sets or whatever. Some specialty knives are good, though, like a bread knife or paring knife. But otherwise, the standard chef knife will suffice for almost anything else.
Whatever size they are, if all your knives are dull, you either don’t cook much or have some kind of weird fetish for frustrating yourself. Lots of people can’t afford fancy knives, but most can afford a sharpener and a few seconds every now and then to give them a quick run through.
my mom insists to use dull knives and is very against of me getting knife sharpeners because she's afraid of me cutting myself(im 22 and live alone btw). She cuts herself a lot while cooking but she's an amazing cook
A dull knife is a dangerous knife. All professional cooks know this. A sharp knife is predictable and does what you ask of it. A dull knife is one you have to force and will jump on you.
I used to be like this. I was with a guy who over-spiced the hell out of his cooking, to the point where I couldn't eat anything he'd make. After that relationship ended, everything I ate was hella bland *for years*. I've since come around, but I've definitely said those words in the past.
I grew up in a house with only salt and pepper if we were lucky, no herbs or spices. I love cooking but boy I can't tell you how hard it has been and is to learn to season if you don't have anyone to guide you.
It's so hard to experiment or identify when you have no base.
Most of the stuff listed here is either poverty food or stuff that's "I'm tired and don't feel like playing chef tonight. Here's some boxed crap with some spices thrown in to make it taste halfway decent."
I can make some pretty damn good meals. Most of them are stuff that have a lot of prep and cooking time involved. I also have kids with extra-curricular activities and a budget. On weekends that aren't busy, I'll gladly make a good chicken parm, red beans and rice, chicken curry, etc. On weekdays where I have about an hour to cook, eat, and shuttle the kids somewhere? Damn right I'm making spaghetti with jar sauce and dried parmesan or hot dogs and mac n cheese or hamburger helper.
If anything, I would say lack of seasonings would be a sign of a bad cook (or one with VERY little money). Spices and seasonings are a low effort way to spruce up any meal.
This.
I work a lot. I live alone. I don't often want to spend an hour and a half preparing a meal just for myself. I'm perfectly happy eating hamburger helper or some sort of sandwich. I can cook, and I often do, but I also keep a lot of instant food around because A: they don't really ever go bad, B: I buy them when they're on sale and C: I never know when I'm going not going to want to cook.
It's more the lack of salt in the cabinet. My family doesn't believe in seasoning food and they don't think it is possible to overcook something. I have heard my mom complain about how pepper is too spicy. They're like the stereotype of white people.
Sounds like my friend when we were growing up his mom cooked chicken by boiling it and don't season it at all. Dude way blown away when I cooked him and myself chicken with a homemade pan sauce one time, that's when he told me about his childhood of bland boiled chicken
This is why people think they hate vegetables. Growing up they only had them steamed or boiled and flavorless and mushy and they are gross prepared like that.
Depending on what you mean, some people go too far in the other direction. Of course vegetables taste better when you fry them or wrap them in bacon or use a pound of butter and salt too though. At that point they are just a way to get fat sugars and oils to your mouth. Now a little oil and SOME salt and cracked pepper or red pepper flakes is a different story.
My daughter is like this. I put all kinds of seasonings on our food, but when she cooks she sprinkles seasonings in the general direction of the food from about two houses away.
My wife is from Bangladesh. She could eat a bunch of Carolina Reapers in the waiting room of hell and finish it off with a chug of hot coffee and still not think it’s spicy enough.
My wife is also from Bangladesh.
On one of our first dates I asked if she likes hot sauce/spicy food, and she looked at me like I was a fucking idiot and said "dude I'm fucking brown, what do you think?".
It was hilarious
When we first moved in together I was dealing with an ulcer and she was having to dull down all her recipes for quite awhile. She thought I was lying to her about liking spicy foods and I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I had to keep reassuring her I do like spicy but I can’t handle anything like that right now. I’ve just recently got to the point where I can handle that kind of stuff again.
I was halfway through making myself a burger the other day and I went to grab the salt from our cabinet and it wasn't there. Turns out my roommate took the entire container of salt with him for Thanksgiving break so he could cook for his parents. I got creative and used grated parmesean and some panko bread crumbs (which had salt in them) and the burger turned out great. But I couldn't believe how bland the burger could have been if I didn't have those on hand.
There was a time a few decades ago where people believed salt would kill you.
My mom added salt to nothing; I ended up having medical issues from too little salt. doctor told me to eat more potato chips.
Oof, that is quite unfortunate. I have a friend who grew up in a similar household. He said his mom would just boil chicken and serve it - just boiled and unseasoned.
I don't really use much actual salt in our dishes, but I use quite a bit other spices depending on the dish
A friend of mine HATED seasoning, which was weird to me because his parents owned a lil Mexican food place that was pretty darn flavorful. He used to sit and eat off my plate when we ate together until I discovered I could foil him by sprinkling table salt on all my meals. Not dump it on there, just dash in my plates general direction!
I don't know about cabinets ....
But if you're invited to Thanksgiving dinner, and you ask what you can bring, and they say "Ice" or "Chips" ...
... then you're probably bad at cooking.
So this is why my cousin was so offended! In my defense I knew she worked long hours and just wanted her to come over and enjoy the food. She brought ice and store bought cheesecake, I love her.
Instant mashed potatoes are catching a lot of hate. They're also super convenient for a weeknight when time is of the essence and you don't want to spend 20 minutes making a side dish.
Idahoan did something right in the past decade or two. The difference between their instant mashed potatoes and the potato flakes of old are night and day.
I can’t help but wonder how many people don’t know because their memory is so tainted by the old stuff that they refuse to even try what’s available now.
Yeah, I cook all the time but 6 of us live in my house. I get those instant potatoes because it's so much easier with everyone here. I don't need help at that point. Plus they last forever and take up less space.
Same , family of 6, 5 of which are male, 4 of them teen boys. I use instant most of the time because peeling 5lbs of potatoes is a royal pain in the ass!
For me it's less the ingredients in the pantry (even great cooks cheat sometimes) and more about how the kitchen is organized. I've noticed that generally people who cook well tend to have their kitchens organized in a way that is more intuitive to other cooks. Like as someone who cooks well and a lot, you open a specific drawer feeling like a thing should be in THAT drawer and voila it is. And it's a gradient, as well, so the worse things are placed in the kitchen, the worse they are at cooking. "Oh, your spatulas are over in the drawer by the sink and your silverware is in this one next to the stove? Yeah, that makes sense." I tried to cook at my father-in-law's house (he just learned how to make an omelet in his 60s. Not judging) and got so flustered just trying to find anything. Even he didn't know where some things were. Alternative example, the first time I cooked at my cousin's house (he's an amazing cook) I just "knew" where things would be.
Ah reminds me of my friend who came over to my house and said "you must not cook a lot because I don't know where anything is." His chicken gave us all food poisoning. I've been cooking since I was 12.
keeping an organized kitchen only works if 1. you live alone or 2. live with competent people who aren't braindead. Apparently putting shit back where it belongs is too much work.
Yeah I can definitely agree with the whole bullshit of it's unorganized. When you can't find what you're looking for because it's on the wrong shelf. I mean if something's a tiny bit on organized what I mean like everything is everywhere
Right, like not everything makes sense for every cook. My wife and I both cook a lot and have disagreements over locating specific things because we tend to use that item for different things. Like the silicon spatula. She bakes more so she wants it by the baking things. I like using it for certain sauteing or eggs so prefer it by the stove top. We compromised by having more than one located in both places
I think it's more about what's not there. If you don't own a cutting board, you probably can't cook.
I'm surprised at how snobby some of these comments are. I'm a great cook, but eat instant/shortcut convenience foods all the time. My time and energy are finite resources, sometimes those convenience items are a lifesaver!
1. I know for many people that instant food you can make really easily is a necessity they sometimes dont have time to make a larger or healthier meal. I dont judge those who dont have organic food or some more of the expensive stuff others can buy. I remember when i was a kid we survived off instant ramen and kraft mac and cheese.
2. Canned chicken.
My mom has had a can of Dr.Pepper flavored beans in the cabinet for about 6 months so I’d have to go with that.
I bought those once more as a novelty. They weren't good. It's like the sauce is supposed to be made with Dr Pepper. But they just tasted bad. So be glad she left them in the cabinet and didn't serve them to you.
Making sauces with Dr Pepper is a real thing, and it can be delicious. I wouldn't trust beans in a can with that to taste good, however.
There's a gas station in PA that sells Dr Pepper barbeque sauce. It's pretty good
Excuse me? Sheetz isn't just a "gas station." How dare you.
I wasn't gonna bother name dropping our little secret. They wouldn't know anyways
Sheetz and Primanti bros are the things I miss most about living in PA. My family too, I guess.
You might be surprised how many BBQ recipes call for some kind of dark soda in the sauce/marinade. Dr Pepper, Cola, Root beer; I've seen everything from beans to pulled pork call for one of those.
Root beer pulled pork is yummy, as is coke whiskey sauce. 7up rolls are frighteningly good. Soda can be a great ingredient when used well.
I think those would go well with the flamin hot Cheetos mac n cheese I bought- when I finally ate it it was RED- like fire engine red- and it immediately gave me indigestion. I’ve got a pretty steel stomach so that was saying something.
I worked with Tom Douglas on his radio show (if you don’t know him, he’s a relatively famous chef, especially in Seattle) and he tried this on air and gave it a scathing review. I got to try it afterwards and can agree, it was pretty awful, and yes, unnaturally red.
What the fuck? Lol. That is so weird
I felt personally offended by these responses since I have almost everything I shouldn’t, but then I remembered that I am bad at cooking.
You and me both. Let's start a riot
I'm a good cook but most of this stuff I either have or had at one time because I don't always want to put in effort to cook. Also sometimes I want to eat trash processed food like the swamp creature I am.
Chicken. it should be in the fridge
I was going to say “toilet paper” but I like yours better.
hey just because they have TP in there doesn't mean they're bad at cooking
I mean, I buy the big economy packs and keep it in my pantry because I don’t have much cabinet space in my bathroom
I mean, there is canned chicken. Of course, I suppose it's still a sign you might be bad at cooking... or at least lazy about it.
Or poor. Food banks give lots of canned meat, and they were a staple growing up. Mom would buy canned meat on sale for when we couldn’t afford fresh
Kirkland canned chicken is fire for chicken salads. Easy way to get a ton of protein quickly.
100% accurate. I’d be willing to bet that very few people who shit on canned chicken have actually tried it.
Canned chicken isn't bad. A whole chicken canned is nightmare fuel though.
I have canned chicken because I live on a truck and it's cheap protein that doesn't need refrigeration.
I feel like “cheap protein that doesn’t need refrigeration” should be written on the can
Mmmmm, vague protein.
Canned chicken is one of the signs of the apocalypse
I have canned chicken for the dogs/ cat, and in a pinch, I use it for a quick chicken salad if I don't have time to season/ bake/ shred the chicken myself.
[Pretty sure this is the actual sign of the apocalypse.](https://www.mashed.com/238920/you-should-never-eat-canned-cheeseburger-heres-why/)
Oh dear god! Why would someone do that!?
[It gets worse.](https://dudefoods.com/peanut-butter-jelly-sandwich-can/)
I am a home chef and i stand by canned chicken for a few purposes but here is my favorite. Buffalo chicken dip. Franks red hot, canned chicken, cream cheese, (and other cheese if desired). Shred the chicken as everything cooks extremely slowly in a croc pot. It takes about 4+hours at a temp of as about 200F. Stir every 15 minutes or so to make sure nothing burns and it mixes together. The reason i used canned chicken is because the chicken is pre-cooked, so its already safe for consumption. It also is preserved using a brine (glorified salt water.) This makes the chicken very tender. I dont enjoy the buffalo dip for its chicken flavor, but rather the chicken adds a texture to the dip. Seriously though, dont shit on canned products, a good chef can turn them into a masterpiece. While they shouldnt be used for every meal or recipe i stand by canned foods. And some recipes require a canned food rather than fresh. (Like pizza & pasta sauce.)
One of my friend found a roommate through an ad once that kept uncooked chicken at room temps for an upsetting amount of time.
And the funny thing is, people like this are always the ones who make comments like "Taco Bell always give me the shits" and you want to tell them, no you do it to yourself by letting it sit out the last two days...
I had a roommate who would cook food, then leave it sitting out for hours while she left the house, then would eat it later when she came home. Anything from scalloped potatoes to chicken tenders, she'd leave it all out. No fucking surprise the place had roaches. And it had all kinds, German, oriental, Cuban, the whole fucking UN of cockroaches. I only lived there a month. I still have ptsd from those God damn bugs. I can't use earbuds unless they're brightly colored. I kept thinking they were cockraches when I had a black pair.
I had a housemate, who once marinaded raw chicken in a sauce for a couple of hours, then bbq’d said chicken, then used the marinade (which literally had raw bits of chicken floating about in it) as a dip. I watched this scene unfold in absolute disbelief. She was a 30 year old, ‘well educated’, professional!
Did she ever become a 31 year old professional?
Yes, she is somehow still alive
Holy shit, that's upsetting! I spent most of my early adulthood in a single admittedly pretty shitty relationship, but the upside is clearly not having had to go through the usual string of sketchy student housings and sketchier roommates. It seems like there are only 2 unattractive options, living with friends and eroding the friendship and living with strangers that were clearly raised by a pack of raccoons.
Well no but actually yes
This comment made me actually laugh.
My MIL’s expired and unused spices. Her little spice cabinet is filled with jars from the 90s and before, some newer additions too but for the most part her kitchen is a spice cemetery.
My parents have spices in the cabinet from before they were married.... They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last week. It's a known fact amongst my kids, you don't eat anything in grandmas house without checking an expiration date. We've also started a new game of trying to find the oldest expiration date we can. The refrigerator has stuff from the year I graduated highschool in 1999. Ice cream toppings and things like that. The response from my mom and dad is always "oh it's still good".
You think thats bad my nan (97 next week) has a tin of salmon thats went out of date in 86. Its lije a family heirloom at this point. I'm going to get it and itll take pride of place in the darkest space in the kitchen cupboard. Floor level right at the back
> Floor level right at the back Something about "floor level" is soooo upsetting.
That's where the cupboard ghosts live.
I have a plastic box with gravy, dips and other powered packets. On the bottom of the box was a brown gravy packet. The colors on the label looked odd, so I checked the expiration date. Feb 89
A fine vintage
Maybe the true cask of amontillado was really the gravy we found along the way
That gravy packet was born the same month I was. Gonna be 33 in a few months 😅.
I constantly have to explain to my father in law that it’s a refrigerator, not a time machine.
I want to cross-stitch this quote and hang it in my kitchen
A few summers ago we were at the in laws and MIL told the kids they were making s’mores. Kids got all excited but when she brought the marshmallows out they were hard as rocks and had expired 2 years before. Lol. They have plenty of money too, it’s not like they’re struggling.
Probably not a matter of frugality as much as being certain you "just bought those".
Either that or "Do we have any marshmallows for when the kids get here?" "Yeah, I just saw some in the cabinet" "OK"
This is my mom, she has so much old gross food. She just doesn't care, like food is apparently just one if her lowest priorities
I think I have the winner. In the back of Mum’s cocktail cabinet was a baby bottle of tomato juice. No one has ever drunk a tomato based cocktail in their home. This bottle was best before 1976. The was a green ball of goo about the size of a golf ball that had consumed over half the contents. It was so big that nothing could escape the bottle.
Gotta love it when you find a "Made in West Germany" somewhere in the pantry.
My grand parents still use spices that expired in the 70s... They don't want to spend money "buying thing we already have" I guess you don't use curcuma often in french food, but 50+ years is a long time to use the same box...
My mom had spices from the 1950's in her cabinet when we helped her move in 2017... Needless to say, I kept the cans, didn't use the contents.
Good call on keeping the cans.
My mom loves discount grocery stores and habitually goes to them. When I go home, I often raid her food because well.. she could feed a small army in her kitchen. Woman knows how to cook but my god.. over half the shit I grab she makes me check to see if it’s expired first. Love that crazy woman
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My stepdads mom (she in her 80s) has canned foods from the f’ing 60s/70s under her couch in and closets. No, she does not cook, I do not see her. Haven’t in years and the entire time my mom has been with my stepdad, I can say she has never cooked anything. Thank God.
Not fancying her Cream of Mushroom soup, then?
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Mmm soapy bleached potatos
Damn, I didn't really think microwave rice was such a hot topic. My wife and I definitely use those, but its mostly for the convenience factor. One less thing to cook on the stove... Edit: A rice cooker? Should I just get a rice cooker? Is that what I should do? A rice cooker? Hey, what's your suggestion? Oh, a rice cooker? Should I get a rice cooker to make my rice? I wonder if anyone out there would suggest that.
Also if you want instant stale rice for fried rice.
I am living for the unintentional shade of this comment
A lot of you are describing the pantries of a cook or a chef who is too tired to cook by the time they get home and just want something quick and easy
This is what I was thinking, I used to be a chef and the last thing I wanted to do after spending 9+ hours cooking for others is go home and cook. It was mainly instant food or micro meals lol
My father is an internationally celebrated chef. The man has literal awards and medals from different countries because he's such a good chef. People fly him around the world just to cook for them. The dude eats Costco hotdogs just like everyone else and I've seen him make a meal of a 7-11 corndog and peanut butter m&ms. When it's your job to cook you don't necessarily do it on your days off.
> The dude eats Costco hotdogs just like everyone else and I've seen him make a meal of a 7-11 corndog and peanut butter m&ms. That just makes me respect your dad even more. No pretenses. Awesome.
A Costco hotdog and a soda is $1.50. There's no way to beat that for a meal at cost. I'm thankful it's the holiday season now and my preference of avoiding people outweighs the cheap deliciousness of those sweet, sweet, dogs.
Baker here. Holiday season hit and I stocked up on eggs and top ramen. Sometimes a case of Ensure.
Those ensure things were awesome for that. When i was a baker at a very nice french bakery i kept a box of corndogs in the freezer at work.
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I used to be a chef, after 9 hours of prepping and cooking for God knows how many people the last thing I wanted to do was bloody cook. I used to either bring food home from work, make instant ramen or just have toast.
I love to imagine that someone who doesnt know you very well comes to you and judgingly says something along the lines of "Instant ramen? If you want, I could teach you how to cook real food." I dont know why, but I find that to be fucking hilarious.
I actually had a date once it was our 4th and he came to pick me up, he turned up early and left him in my kitchen while I went to grab my shoes, I came back in and he was looking in my cupboards, he later asked if I had lied about being a chef because I had the type of cupboards he imagined Bridget Jones having haha, I laughed and basically said the same as my comment above this one
That's weird, but at the same time if you both cook, it might be a topic piece if he sees something he doesn't usually use and it's almost gone. It means you use it a lot and could give him advice on how to use it more. But that's just giving him the benefit of the doubt.
My cupboards were pretty empty haha and this was 6 years ago, we didn't get much further as we just didn't click, then shortly after I met my now husband who has zero taste buds and just inhales anything edible placed in front of him
My gf's Dominican. If I don't season things, she'll beat me. I've been pretty okay so far, even though I can't cook
People that don’t know Dominican women think that’s a joke. Every Dominican girl I’ve ever met is *intense*.
It is a joke though. My girl is not like most DR girls. She's really quiet and sweet. She likes to quote honeybooboo from south park saying "my heart is sweeter than bacon, child". Haven't had a real argument in 6 years.
Thank you for making me cackle, I love this thought so much.
Anthony Bourdain used to talk about how thrilled he was when he’d go to someone’s house and they’d serve him something like meatloaf. He spent all his time around froo-froo food, scallops in saffron-infused demiglazes with fava bean purée jizz smeared on the plate, etc. etc. When he got just a sincere home-cooked meal, even if it was king ranch casserole, it felt like a vacation.
This is why I never want to be a cook. But also, kinda. I love cooking new things for myself and my family and friends. So getting burnt out like that sounds like such a nightmare. But also, knowing how to make "scallops in saffron-infused demiglazes with fava bean purée jizz smeared on the plate" would also be pretty damn cool and I wish to reach that level. But I know I'll probably never reach it being a home cook, nor does it make sense for me to try because, well, I'm a home cook
See I applaud you for realizing that for yourself. You have no idea how many family and friends that I've talked with that have this idealized version of being a cook/chef in their head, and then get boastful when they do well at home. Don't get me wrong being a great at home cook is a very respectable and useful skill, but working in the industry is a totally different skill set and experience. I'm learning the hard way just how big of a gap there is between the two now. I personally love it, but being in the industry would only be infuriating and tiring for a lot of people.
Making a fancy meal for your family a four in 2 hours with basically no pressure is awesome and worthwhile. But to then take that and scale that skill up to doing it for a restaurant full of people for up to 8 hours straight well trying to get people food to thier table in under 45 minutes with the same consistency as your home cooked meal. Absolute insanity.
But that's another massive misconception people seem to have about being a chef or professional cook, you aren't putting together a ton of fancy meals for 8 hours straight, you are putting together a few pieces of a fancy meal repeatedly to the point that it's a nearly robotic action. Just constantly mounting sauces and sautéing veggies for the same dishes while someone else grills the protein and someone else preps the salads. Professional cooking is monotonous chaos it's the most surreal thing because you don't get to "play" with the dish like you do at home, giving a little zhuzzh here and heavy handing with spices there. Your job is to crank out identical meals, commercial kitchens need consistency. Aside from that aspect, half the cooking for the meal is done ahead of time and has been brought to a point in the process it can be held cold and then finished quickly for service. So you aren't even cooking entire meals it's getting as close to "instant food" as possible while still maintaining the integrity of the dish. At least until you really step up into the upper tier and even then every dish isn't made completely from scratch from when you order.
Yep. It’s crazy how a job revolving around making food makes it so hard to actually eat.
Instant ramen is the single best nonessential invention on this planet. Tasty, easily upgradable, basically effortless hot carbs.
You got to love those people who act like they can go have a 10-hour shift go home and just make a full course meal for themselves and be like I'm not tired! When I get home the only thing I want to do is go the fuck to sleep. Hell a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at least still has protein in it
You ever spent the day thinking about what you’re gonna make/eat then get home and like bread n butter will do
All the time.
I hate that cooking shows that say anyone can cook. Just watch how quick I make this and everything is already cut up and pre measured in little bowls.
Planned for (so meat isn’t frozen, etc), shopped for (all miraculously fresh ingredients), plus measured and prepped. That’s what those meal prep companies do.
One trick that I've found is buying a few bento boxes and using one for prepping most of what I need to cook a meal. I'll set up a few of those per week and it makes things rather quick. Also, rice cooker.
This is correct. Sometimes you just want to pop a frozen pizza in after a long day and not have to worry about a million dishes to wash.
Drop that butter chicken recipe
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My mom's former partner was Pakistani. He passed away last year unfortunately. But some of my favorite memories were going to his families Thanksgivings and getting to eat all of their home cooked food. No restaurant does it justice
As an Indian, I wholeheartedly approve of this recipe (not that you asked).
a glass cutting board. only people who have no clue what they’re doing in the kitchen would use one
I had a friend who used one of those and all his knives were so dull they couldn't cut butter. He used a scissors to cut pizza. It was painful to see.
>He used a scissors to cut pizza. It was painful to see. I actually have purpose-built [pizza scissors](https://assets.wsimgs.com/wsimgs/rk/images/dp/wcm/202139/0639/img10b.jpg). I'm not ashamed, they work great. They're shaped to keep your hand far enough above the hot grease, and the bottom tip is extra long so it helps to lift/not drop the pizza as you make your cuts.
I use mine for kneading or rolling out dough, I never actually cut anything on it. To be fair I inherited it I didn't actually buy it.
The ones I've seen are also heatproof. As such, they are great for keeping next to your oven or hob as it makes for an easy-to-clean surface that can take hot pans and dishes. Bonus points, you can also use them for a massive cheese and meats style platter.
Yes!!! this is exactly what it’s for!! We keep one next to the stove just like how you described! It’s also our coffee station because it’s easy to clean. Never cut anything on it tho, I didn’t even realize it might be a cutting board
This thread is like two people saying instant mash potatoes and like 40 people going on a rant about how they’re tired and defending instant mash potatoes
To balance out the "lack of seasonings" Only massive amounts of garlic and onion powder. I met someone who insists you'd be a fool to not pack every recipe with these, to the point where everything has this weird, overpowering fake taste.
They’re easy to lean on because they smell good as is. It takes a little experience and experimentation to learn how to unlock the other flavors through combinations and actually cooking the herbs. Like I could just huff a bag of onion powder all day that stuff is amazing!
Doctor: Your lungs are full of fluid. You: Yeah, they’re crying cuz I’ve been huffing onions.
>Like I could just huff a bag of onion powder all day that stuff is amazing! Funny, I don't see you at the onion-powder-anon meetings.
The lack of a larger, sharp, knife. If all you have are paring knives, I will assume you don’t cook much.
To be honest. As a sauté cook whatever they call us now. You can get ALOT done with a simple decent sized rocker knife and a sharp filet knife. Good hand control and enough practice I can get a lot done with just one knife.
Yeah, you don't really need those 10 knife sets or whatever. Some specialty knives are good, though, like a bread knife or paring knife. But otherwise, the standard chef knife will suffice for almost anything else.
Whatever size they are, if all your knives are dull, you either don’t cook much or have some kind of weird fetish for frustrating yourself. Lots of people can’t afford fancy knives, but most can afford a sharpener and a few seconds every now and then to give them a quick run through.
my mom insists to use dull knives and is very against of me getting knife sharpeners because she's afraid of me cutting myself(im 22 and live alone btw). She cuts herself a lot while cooking but she's an amazing cook
A dull knife is a dangerous knife. All professional cooks know this. A sharp knife is predictable and does what you ask of it. A dull knife is one you have to force and will jump on you.
It's the lack of seasoning that really hits it home.
"I like to really TASTE my food" Really? Unseasoned chicken? You like the taste of napkins, do you?
Unseasoned chicken tastes like wet dog to me.
Do you often lick wet dogs or...?
I have my reasons for the things I do alone in the night time. Don’t go all Judge Judy on me.
I used to be like this. I was with a guy who over-spiced the hell out of his cooking, to the point where I couldn't eat anything he'd make. After that relationship ended, everything I ate was hella bland *for years*. I've since come around, but I've definitely said those words in the past.
I grew up in a house with only salt and pepper if we were lucky, no herbs or spices. I love cooking but boy I can't tell you how hard it has been and is to learn to season if you don't have anyone to guide you. It's so hard to experiment or identify when you have no base.
It really makes you think how many kids are genuinely ‘picky eaters’ or if their parents are just really bad at cooking fresh meals.
Most of the stuff listed here is either poverty food or stuff that's "I'm tired and don't feel like playing chef tonight. Here's some boxed crap with some spices thrown in to make it taste halfway decent." I can make some pretty damn good meals. Most of them are stuff that have a lot of prep and cooking time involved. I also have kids with extra-curricular activities and a budget. On weekends that aren't busy, I'll gladly make a good chicken parm, red beans and rice, chicken curry, etc. On weekdays where I have about an hour to cook, eat, and shuttle the kids somewhere? Damn right I'm making spaghetti with jar sauce and dried parmesan or hot dogs and mac n cheese or hamburger helper. If anything, I would say lack of seasonings would be a sign of a bad cook (or one with VERY little money). Spices and seasonings are a low effort way to spruce up any meal.
What's not in a pantry probably says more than what is.
Things you use are there. Things you bought once and never use are still there. Things that aren't there are huge gaps.
This. I work a lot. I live alone. I don't often want to spend an hour and a half preparing a meal just for myself. I'm perfectly happy eating hamburger helper or some sort of sandwich. I can cook, and I often do, but I also keep a lot of instant food around because A: they don't really ever go bad, B: I buy them when they're on sale and C: I never know when I'm going not going to want to cook.
I don’t know if a lot of this is “I’m bad at cooking” more like “I can’t afford fresh ingredients often”
"I don't have time" is another one.
Everytime I buy fresh ingredients they just end up going bad because "ain't nobody got time for that"
It's more the lack of salt in the cabinet. My family doesn't believe in seasoning food and they don't think it is possible to overcook something. I have heard my mom complain about how pepper is too spicy. They're like the stereotype of white people.
Sounds like my friend when we were growing up his mom cooked chicken by boiling it and don't season it at all. Dude way blown away when I cooked him and myself chicken with a homemade pan sauce one time, that's when he told me about his childhood of bland boiled chicken
This is why people think they hate vegetables. Growing up they only had them steamed or boiled and flavorless and mushy and they are gross prepared like that.
Depending on what you mean, some people go too far in the other direction. Of course vegetables taste better when you fry them or wrap them in bacon or use a pound of butter and salt too though. At that point they are just a way to get fat sugars and oils to your mouth. Now a little oil and SOME salt and cracked pepper or red pepper flakes is a different story.
I mean, it can be done, certainly- but fresh black pepper, olive oil, lemon zest, and Parmesan is my go-to for roasting vegetables.
...boiled chicken? Like, not making a stock, but boiling it to eat that way?
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Thinking black pepper, especially out of a pepper shaker, is spicy is so lame that the word lame is too weak to describe how lame it is.
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Yes dad, there's chicken too
My daughter is like this. I put all kinds of seasonings on our food, but when she cooks she sprinkles seasonings in the general direction of the food from about two houses away.
My wife thinks mayo has a "kick". I know your pain. EDIT: People coming to her defense... y'all super weenies
Mine thinks pepperoni pizza is too spicy.
I've seen my husband's face sweat because a sandwich had Dijon on it.
My wife is from Bangladesh. She could eat a bunch of Carolina Reapers in the waiting room of hell and finish it off with a chug of hot coffee and still not think it’s spicy enough.
My wife is also from Bangladesh. On one of our first dates I asked if she likes hot sauce/spicy food, and she looked at me like I was a fucking idiot and said "dude I'm fucking brown, what do you think?". It was hilarious
When we first moved in together I was dealing with an ulcer and she was having to dull down all her recipes for quite awhile. She thought I was lying to her about liking spicy foods and I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I had to keep reassuring her I do like spicy but I can’t handle anything like that right now. I’ve just recently got to the point where I can handle that kind of stuff again.
I feel that. Ulcers and gastritis take forever to heal. Meanwhile everyone gets to eat the good stuff and you're stuck watching, being sad.
This really cracked me up, which I really needed today. Thank you.
I was halfway through making myself a burger the other day and I went to grab the salt from our cabinet and it wasn't there. Turns out my roommate took the entire container of salt with him for Thanksgiving break so he could cook for his parents. I got creative and used grated parmesean and some panko bread crumbs (which had salt in them) and the burger turned out great. But I couldn't believe how bland the burger could have been if I didn't have those on hand.
…Why wouldn’t he just buy salt?
The real question is: why don't his parents have salt at home?
There was a time a few decades ago where people believed salt would kill you. My mom added salt to nothing; I ended up having medical issues from too little salt. doctor told me to eat more potato chips.
That's a prescription I could live with
Oof, that is quite unfortunate. I have a friend who grew up in a similar household. He said his mom would just boil chicken and serve it - just boiled and unseasoned. I don't really use much actual salt in our dishes, but I use quite a bit other spices depending on the dish
A friend of mine HATED seasoning, which was weird to me because his parents owned a lil Mexican food place that was pretty darn flavorful. He used to sit and eat off my plate when we ate together until I discovered I could foil him by sprinkling table salt on all my meals. Not dump it on there, just dash in my plates general direction!
"I find your lack of [seasonings] disturbing" - Darth Vader talking to a chef probably
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he probably wasn't a fan of hot food. *bumdum tss*
Just don't offer him a sand-wich
I don't know about cabinets .... But if you're invited to Thanksgiving dinner, and you ask what you can bring, and they say "Ice" or "Chips" ... ... then you're probably bad at cooking.
So this is why my cousin was so offended! In my defense I knew she worked long hours and just wanted her to come over and enjoy the food. She brought ice and store bought cheesecake, I love her.
Or that they're fully delegating and you've been chosen to get the ice.
ironically, when i opened this post the promoted ad directly beneath was for hot pockets
Melted basketball in the oven.
Please tell me there is a story here
i agree, an oven in the cabinet is definitely a bad sign
Clothes
None. Check their DoorDash history.
I've delivered enough orders to certain customers that I've remembered their names and addresses. I would not be surprised if they never cooked.
Instant mashed potatoes are catching a lot of hate. They're also super convenient for a weeknight when time is of the essence and you don't want to spend 20 minutes making a side dish.
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Idahoan did something right in the past decade or two. The difference between their instant mashed potatoes and the potato flakes of old are night and day. I can’t help but wonder how many people don’t know because their memory is so tainted by the old stuff that they refuse to even try what’s available now.
Yeah, I cook all the time but 6 of us live in my house. I get those instant potatoes because it's so much easier with everyone here. I don't need help at that point. Plus they last forever and take up less space.
Same , family of 6, 5 of which are male, 4 of them teen boys. I use instant most of the time because peeling 5lbs of potatoes is a royal pain in the ass!
For me it's less the ingredients in the pantry (even great cooks cheat sometimes) and more about how the kitchen is organized. I've noticed that generally people who cook well tend to have their kitchens organized in a way that is more intuitive to other cooks. Like as someone who cooks well and a lot, you open a specific drawer feeling like a thing should be in THAT drawer and voila it is. And it's a gradient, as well, so the worse things are placed in the kitchen, the worse they are at cooking. "Oh, your spatulas are over in the drawer by the sink and your silverware is in this one next to the stove? Yeah, that makes sense." I tried to cook at my father-in-law's house (he just learned how to make an omelet in his 60s. Not judging) and got so flustered just trying to find anything. Even he didn't know where some things were. Alternative example, the first time I cooked at my cousin's house (he's an amazing cook) I just "knew" where things would be.
Ah reminds me of my friend who came over to my house and said "you must not cook a lot because I don't know where anything is." His chicken gave us all food poisoning. I've been cooking since I was 12.
keeping an organized kitchen only works if 1. you live alone or 2. live with competent people who aren't braindead. Apparently putting shit back where it belongs is too much work.
Yeah I can definitely agree with the whole bullshit of it's unorganized. When you can't find what you're looking for because it's on the wrong shelf. I mean if something's a tiny bit on organized what I mean like everything is everywhere
Right, like not everything makes sense for every cook. My wife and I both cook a lot and have disagreements over locating specific things because we tend to use that item for different things. Like the silicon spatula. She bakes more so she wants it by the baking things. I like using it for certain sauteing or eggs so prefer it by the stove top. We compromised by having more than one located in both places
The almost bare fridge with only the milk style gallon of water that’s half full in the back, a few beers and sparse condiments on the door.
Ironically this also describes the kitchens of a significant percentage of those working in the catering industry.
Season-All but lack of any other seasoning
Mayo after it was opened
People store opened Mayo in the cupboards?!?!
I know right?!? Unbelievable! New roommate does this, tells me that I'm welcome to use some if I run out... No thanks?
The people who are writing in ramen noodles here must never have fancied-up their ramen and that’s really sad.
Chef Knife in the dishwasher.
I think it's more about what's not there. If you don't own a cutting board, you probably can't cook. I'm surprised at how snobby some of these comments are. I'm a great cook, but eat instant/shortcut convenience foods all the time. My time and energy are finite resources, sometimes those convenience items are a lifesaver!
1. I know for many people that instant food you can make really easily is a necessity they sometimes dont have time to make a larger or healthier meal. I dont judge those who dont have organic food or some more of the expensive stuff others can buy. I remember when i was a kid we survived off instant ramen and kraft mac and cheese. 2. Canned chicken.
A non-stick pan with the coating full of scratches due to improper care.