[haskellandchill]

I worked as a line cook for half a year, changed my life. I learned how to live on $10/hour and how to cook anything quickly and have it come out tasty. And I only cried in the walk in occasionally.

Cooking well is mostly attitude and confidence. Prep and cook everything at the same time, figuring out the order to do it all in parallel is a fun puzzle and executing it gives you a rush. I never measure any ingredients and improvise recipes constantly.

"Don't cook everything evenly" is very good advice. Let things sit at appropriate heat, amateur cooks are too touchy. But I disagree about recipes, they are just suggestions to me, good to know the outline and then leverage your general knowledge of cooking to get it done.

[tylertringas]

Agreed! But, I think very novice cooks should rigorously follow recipes, learn what a good result is across a wide variety of dishes, then learn how to substitute things or change up recipes. Or rather that's what worked for me.