This is really beautiful, because I have only very recently started cooking. While I lived on my own before and therefore had to cook for myself, I was so stressed at my job that I didn't have the energy to invest in it. Now that I'm unemployed, I've been cooking a lot more and it's been so much fun! It's a huge confidence builder and I get to exercise different skills. I've always been a girl who preferred hobbies that didn't involve my hands, but this has been a way to learn how my body works. It's a sensory experience, a type that we get very little of, these days. And although, yes, you can go on your phone while cooking, to a certain extent, you have to be off of it. And that opens up your brain to so many other experiences, like letting it be bored, letting it wander, letting it invent new and creative things, in absence of other people's creations! I really love cooking for myself now, when I can. I also get to experiment with what works and what doesn't, and there's no real cost to doing so - the worst that can happen is that I have a mildly unfulfilling meal.
Thank you! Yes, I love that cooking helps us be present. A sensory experience is a great way to put it. I hope you keep loving your cooking practice. It has so many rewards.
Unpopular opinion here but if you do approach with curiosity, gen ai can be a truly useful learning tool. There are plenty of AI slop recipes, but if you ask it questions instead of having it do all the work for you (and use a modern model), you can learn even more. I've had plenty of success telling it what ideas I have and asking if they make sense, getting help with ratios when I already have a set of ingredients in mind, asking about substitutions, or telling it how a recipe turned out and asking what I could do next time to make it better (it helped me troubleshoot my flat foccacia most recently, next attempt was much better).
I honestly could have Googled all this as well, but if the answers come faster, it's easier to ask questions and tap into curiosity, as long as I'm being intentional about using it as a tool for learning and not doing my "homework" for me
Love this so much, and hate AI with equal fervor. I've gotten so bad at controlling my eye rolls when people, especially food people, tell me they use AI.
Curiosity also started me on my cooking journey. The biggest change came when I had a super sick 3 month old baby and all we did was watch Food Network cooking shows for 10 days. Sarah Moulton, Ming Tsai, and Martha Stewart were huge influences. They taught me how to cook. I, personally, don’t use AI to generate a recipe. I can make my own. And I prefer the human touch and experience that comes with a recipe from a real person.
So true Michelle, curiosity feeds the soul and without it there is no growth, no inspiration. I am baffled by how much AI has taken over, Has no-one seen Terminator people ????
This is by far the best "locker room" speech a coach could ever deliver. AI is not welcome in my kitchen. Or my writing. Or reading. Luddites will win!
I can honestly say, I have never used AI. You don’t miss something you have never used. I will print recipes off and go analog. Cooking for me was out of necessity from my days on the railway. There were many situations we had to haul food to work because we were in the middle of the bush or a small northern Ontario town. So, I had one choice to learn to cook or starve 😂😂😂. I chose the former.
Fuck yes to being a weirdo and hell no no ChatGPT! Fuck yea for learning forever. How can people not be interested in everything? Michelle, if you haven’t heard of it (and like podcasts) you should check out Ologies by Alie Ward. Super cool woman, so much interesting stuff to learn!
I do enjoy technology but I am not into chat gpt or any of the fake AIs we have for the thinking and the Eco aspects. Sure I use search engines quite a bit which AI is a glorified search engine as of now that uses a crop ton of water. Although I would date a robot.
I also love to keep learning even if it's just little things. My library has a lot of free webinars Open to anyone, some are done by the library some are done by this other like national library group and they're all different topics sometimes it's about local NJ history, sometimes someone who wrote a novel.
I just found that a local Jewish temple, not the one I went to growing up, has a series of free with optional donation, webinars about Judaica topics and tours of different Jewish museums And signed up for those. I'm an atheist, raised very relaxed Jewish, I'm interested my history and culture.
And for the last few years I've been taking some webinar classes about Egypt from Dr Colleen Darnell. Ancient Egypt is fascinating although now we've learned so much it's not as much of a mystery but it's still interesting. Her classes range from learning how to read hieroglyphics over series of eight classes, to casting a spell in ancient Egypt, Egypt mania in America the 1920s, and even Egypt in the movies like The mummy and Indiana Jones movies And what's real or fiction.
This is really beautiful, because I have only very recently started cooking. While I lived on my own before and therefore had to cook for myself, I was so stressed at my job that I didn't have the energy to invest in it. Now that I'm unemployed, I've been cooking a lot more and it's been so much fun! It's a huge confidence builder and I get to exercise different skills. I've always been a girl who preferred hobbies that didn't involve my hands, but this has been a way to learn how my body works. It's a sensory experience, a type that we get very little of, these days. And although, yes, you can go on your phone while cooking, to a certain extent, you have to be off of it. And that opens up your brain to so many other experiences, like letting it be bored, letting it wander, letting it invent new and creative things, in absence of other people's creations! I really love cooking for myself now, when I can. I also get to experiment with what works and what doesn't, and there's no real cost to doing so - the worst that can happen is that I have a mildly unfulfilling meal.
Thank you! Yes, I love that cooking helps us be present. A sensory experience is a great way to put it. I hope you keep loving your cooking practice. It has so many rewards.
Unpopular opinion here but if you do approach with curiosity, gen ai can be a truly useful learning tool. There are plenty of AI slop recipes, but if you ask it questions instead of having it do all the work for you (and use a modern model), you can learn even more. I've had plenty of success telling it what ideas I have and asking if they make sense, getting help with ratios when I already have a set of ingredients in mind, asking about substitutions, or telling it how a recipe turned out and asking what I could do next time to make it better (it helped me troubleshoot my flat foccacia most recently, next attempt was much better).
I honestly could have Googled all this as well, but if the answers come faster, it's easier to ask questions and tap into curiosity, as long as I'm being intentional about using it as a tool for learning and not doing my "homework" for me
Love this so much, and hate AI with equal fervor. I've gotten so bad at controlling my eye rolls when people, especially food people, tell me they use AI.
My eye rolls always give me away too
Curiosity also started me on my cooking journey. The biggest change came when I had a super sick 3 month old baby and all we did was watch Food Network cooking shows for 10 days. Sarah Moulton, Ming Tsai, and Martha Stewart were huge influences. They taught me how to cook. I, personally, don’t use AI to generate a recipe. I can make my own. And I prefer the human touch and experience that comes with a recipe from a real person.
The old Food Network was a huge influence on me too!
So true Michelle, curiosity feeds the soul and without it there is no growth, no inspiration. I am baffled by how much AI has taken over, Has no-one seen Terminator people ????
Im referencing the Terminator more and more these days lol
You write with the white-hot energy we all need in 2026, thank you. Please set fire to everything and let us all dance around the flames together.
Now I’m blushing, but in a cool way.
This is by far the best "locker room" speech a coach could ever deliver. AI is not welcome in my kitchen. Or my writing. Or reading. Luddites will win!
Fuck yeah! One of my favorite lines in Ted Lasso was “Be curious, not judgmental.” That goes for everything in life.
Yessssssssss, love that.
I can honestly say, I have never used AI. You don’t miss something you have never used. I will print recipes off and go analog. Cooking for me was out of necessity from my days on the railway. There were many situations we had to haul food to work because we were in the middle of the bush or a small northern Ontario town. So, I had one choice to learn to cook or starve 😂😂😂. I chose the former.
Fuck yes to being a weirdo and hell no no ChatGPT! Fuck yea for learning forever. How can people not be interested in everything? Michelle, if you haven’t heard of it (and like podcasts) you should check out Ologies by Alie Ward. Super cool woman, so much interesting stuff to learn!
Yes!!! You know I love it already. We all have such good taste.
Of COURSE you do, how silly of me!!
I do enjoy technology but I am not into chat gpt or any of the fake AIs we have for the thinking and the Eco aspects. Sure I use search engines quite a bit which AI is a glorified search engine as of now that uses a crop ton of water. Although I would date a robot.
I also love to keep learning even if it's just little things. My library has a lot of free webinars Open to anyone, some are done by the library some are done by this other like national library group and they're all different topics sometimes it's about local NJ history, sometimes someone who wrote a novel.
I just found that a local Jewish temple, not the one I went to growing up, has a series of free with optional donation, webinars about Judaica topics and tours of different Jewish museums And signed up for those. I'm an atheist, raised very relaxed Jewish, I'm interested my history and culture.
And for the last few years I've been taking some webinar classes about Egypt from Dr Colleen Darnell. Ancient Egypt is fascinating although now we've learned so much it's not as much of a mystery but it's still interesting. Her classes range from learning how to read hieroglyphics over series of eight classes, to casting a spell in ancient Egypt, Egypt mania in America the 1920s, and even Egypt in the movies like The mummy and Indiana Jones movies And what's real or fiction.