Before you sit down to read this, pour a cup of tea, grab a quilt, and kick back—this is going to be a long one. But at the end of it, I promise to give you my personal blueprint to being a better cook.
The Story That Started It All
I wasn’t born with a natural talent for cooking—only a curiosity. As a kid, cooking often ended in frustration or even tears. I’ll never forget the day I tried to cook a packet masala chicken from Parampara, a popular ready-to-cook masala in early 2000s Goa. At 11 years old, with seven years of kitchen “apprenticeship” under my belt, I felt confident.
Yet somehow, I not only burned the dish—I charred it. Whether I left the gas too high or stepped away from the stove, I can’t remember. But I do remember two things:
- I hid in the balcony and prayed to never cook again.
- Despite everything, the salvaged curry still tasted pretty good.
The lesson? Being a better cook comes from first being a bad one—and persevering anyway.
You Don’t Need Talent—You Need Perseverance
You’ll burn things. You’ll break things. You might even blow things up (fun tip: never put hot liquids in a mixer). But don’t let that stop you.
Take inspiration from people like Madhur Jaffrey, the James Beard Award winner, who couldn’t cook at all when she started. She learned by following recipes her mother mailed to her from India.
Hard work beats talent—especially when talent doesn’t work hard.
Over the years of teaching and cooking, I’ve developed a system that speeds up the learning process. Here it is.
The Blueprint to Becoming a Better Cook
1. Get a Notebook (or App)
- Paper or digital—whichever works for you
- Optional: Beautiful stationery if you’re like me
2. Get a Weighing Scale
- Digital preferred for precision
- (Check my recommended gear list here)
3. Understand: Cooking is a Science
- You’re a chemist in a delicious lab
- Documenting variables will help control the chaos
This method of logging and structured documentation is inspired in part by techniques from science journaling and bullet journaling methods, both of which emphasize clarity, consistency, and deliberate reflection. My early experience learning how to correctly maintain a lab journal in 8th grade science class heavily influenced how I approach recipe logging today.
My 7-Step Logging Process
- Create an Index (reserve 2–4 pages)
- Number Your Pages (for easy reference)
- Start Every Entry With:
- Date & Recipe Title
- Optional but useful: Humidity & Temperature (especially for baking)
- Log Exact Quantities
- Even if you modified an online recipe
- Record Your Method This Time
- Oven temps, timings, steps taken
- Note Results + Troubleshooting
- What worked? What didn’t? Why?
- Create a Footnote: “Next Time Changes”
- What you’ll tweak next time (temps, quantities, techniques)
Bonus Tips
- Use symbols in margins (inspired by bullet journaling)
- Write in block letters (legible and future-proof)
- Be consistent—logging over time builds intuition faster
People who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Your logbook ensures your mistakes—and solutions—are clearly documented for next time.
Final Thoughts
Now it’s your turn. Set up your logbook, make mistakes, and document them. Every bad dish brings you one step closer to being a better cook—if you take the time to learn from it.
Happy cooking, love!