There have been a few occasions in my life when I had a conversation with someone (or watched a show) about food, and they said something so thought provoking that it has stayed with me for years. In fact, there are four such occasions that I’ve taken to heart, some of them over a decade old, that have shaped my entire culinary journey. While I’m sure everyone has their own kitchen inspirations, I hope a few of these are meaningful to you.

Make Your Chicken Taste like Chicken

“I like it when my chicken tastes like chicken. I like it when my rice tastes like rice.” This was said to me by a man in his small house in central Chile. We’d had a simple meal of pork, potatoes, and tomato salad served with his homemade mayonnaise, and his philosophy really showed in his food. The pork tasted very porky, and the potatoes… well, you get the point.

So why does this matter and how does it change the cooking process? This advice may not be for everyone, but here’s why it has been so fundamental for me:

Sauteing zucchini without covering it in a mountain of fat and spices lets you actually appreciate the zucchini for what it is—a sweet, watery, and surprisingly floral vegetable. I was still in my late teenage years and was simply gnawing for more calories every minute of the day, so to my caveman brain zucchini was just a vehicle for parmesan cheese and garlic salt (and perhaps some pepperoni, too. Hey look, guys, I made a zucchini pizza! I’m a culinary wizard!).

What if instead, we grilled it super quickly on high heat just to get some char, and then added some garlic? This zucchini still tastes like zucchini, but the other elements complement and heighten it instead of just drowning it out. Or what about serving it entirely raw with just a slight, almost imperceptible dash of table sugar? One of the best chef’s in America does that. People ask him for his recipe. Why does he do this? Because he appreciates the flavor of a fresh zucchini.

Learning to think about and taste food in this way has helped me to stop overeating, and has guided the way I look for and come up with recipes. I’m cooking with chicken? Well… what can I do to make it taste the most like chicken? If I find an online recipe that’s entirely focused on something other than the chicken (say, a cheese sauce, a “barbecue” sauce, or some other high-calorie showstealer that is probably just a cocktail of a bunch of store-bought, pre-prepared ingredients)… the recipe probably isn’t for me.

Play Jazz Music

Once I returned home from Chile and got married, my wife got into watching some cooking shows. This is how I came across a certain chef who I started following on social media, and he said the following: “Learning to cook well is a lot like learning to play jazz music.”

What does this mean? Well, certain styles of jazz music are well-known for improvisation, meaning the musicians get into a groove with their band, and then they invent music on the spot. It’s pretty spectacular.

However, the musicians don’t just make noise and hope it turns into music. In fact, in order for the whole thing to work, everyone on the band does three things:

Master the Basics: Rhythm structures, keys, key signatures, and more. Before anyone tries to get neat, they first get educated. Sure, rules are made to be broken, but first you have to know the rules. What about the cooks in our humble kitchens? Well, here’s a list of basics:

• How much, how often, and when to salt what foods (this is a deep, deep hole to dive down; one that I could devote many an article to)
• The way acid enhances flavor, preserves or distorts color, and preserves food
• The culinary heritage of various cooking fats, their smoke points, and how to use them to crisp, brown, and enhance different foods
• High-heat versus low-heat cooking methods and how to choose among them
• Flavor pairings
• The mother sauces
• Mirepoix
• Food preservation techniques like pickling, fermenting, dehydrating, freeze drying, and smoking
• Barbecue, barbecue, barbecue!

The list is literally infinite. But here’s a secret: the basics are not recipes. But if you know the basics, you can find better recipes and enhance the recipes you’ve got.

Choose a Specialty: At some point in time, a jazz player will settle on the trombone or trumpet. Sure, they could dabble in some other stuff, but they learn to play their role.

So what’s your specialty?

Mine? I obsess over American cooking, and I prioritize high-quality, low-ingredient foods. That doesn’t mean I can’t make tacos or pho whenever I want, but I tend to find myself putting some sort of American twist on things because that’s what I’ve devoted most of my time to. My mirepoix often includes bell peppers instead of carrots, my tacos are ground beef and served with white barbecue sauce and coleslaw, and I don’t think I’ve ever even had real Chinese food…

Don’t have a specialty? Don’t worry! Find something you're passionate about and explore! Pick one of those “basics” I listed above and do some research, buy a book, and practice practice practice! You’ll find your niche sooner than you think.

Practice a Lot: Yep, jazz conga players spend more time playing their congas than scrolling the internet looking at pictures of congas. It’s time for a heart to heart on something: your ample Pinterest board may be important to you, but it’ll never be as important or satisfying to you as the meals you actually create.

This tip probably doesn’t need much embellishment like the last two, but let me bring up one idea before we move on: any bozo can throw together a list of ingredients (especially if half of them are pre-packaged and come with the words “Martha” and “Stewart” on them), but a chef takes the time and effort to think about what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it.

Often, cooking just feels like another chore, but pretty often for me (and I suspect pretty often for you as well, because you’ve read this far into a food article), cooking isn’t just a mundane part of life, it’s actually an escape from the mundanity and a chance to do something creative, challenging, and fun. Embrace that!

Cooking is Art, and Art is Serious

Cooking can be a creative and deeply personal form of expression. Like painting or writing, cooking requires time, patience, and practice to truly master. The word "serious" doesn’t mean cooking has to be stuffy or rigid; it means treating the process with respect. You don’t become a great artist by collecting pretty pictures on Pinterest, right? Similarly, great cooking isn’t just about copying recipes or collecting ideas—it’s about rolling up your sleeves, experimenting, and putting in the effort to improve.

Now with this being said, cooking isn’t just art (it’s also food), and even if it was, it’s not that serious. But still, if we profess something, then let’s treat it professionally. That means we do it intentionally, we study and learn, and most importantly, we have fun!

Love Food (most people just love eating)

Your time in the kitchen isn’t about nonstop indulgence, it’s about innovation. I love a plate of overly-cheesy nachos as much as the next guy, but do you realize how easy that is?

“Oh, my girlfriend is the best cook, she literally melts a block of cream cheese onto everything. It’s amazing!”

Bro. That’s your monkey brain talking. More calories make belly happy. Snap out of it.

Loving food means going deeper. It’s about curiosity—wondering where your ingredients come from, learning about their cultural or historical significance, and appreciating the care that goes into preparing them. It’s the difference between just enjoying the end result and truly valuing the entire process. When you love food, you’re more likely to put thought and care into your cooking. You're more likely to have a happy waistline, too.

En Fin

Cooking isn’t just about putting food on the table—it’s about putting yourself on the plate (not literally, that’d be weird). So go forth, find your specialty, and make chicken that tastes like chicken. And if all else fails, remember: shredded cheese and extra butter make everything better. Except dignity.

By the way, are there any “basics” from the list I provided in this article that you want to know more about? Send me an email or let me know in the comments, and I’ll be sure to write an article or two about it!