“Wouldn’t it be convenient if I could just spend an afternoon, maybe two grinding away and walk away with a skill level at mastery?”

Whether or not they would like to admit to it, that is a thought that has crossed almost every video gamer’s mind at one point or another. The reality is, we aren’t in a video game world. Even when something like a Sword Art Online or true Metaverse comes online, the reality is that the skills picked up in the video game realms will not immediately translate over to real life. You could have the best haptics and sensory simulations in the world, it’s not going to turn you into a Master IRL.

To be fair, Tom and I are both VERY lucky. We’ve both spent years honing our skills since we were kids. I even had the chance to stage at some of the best restaurants in Chicago at the time, though I’ll save the details of that for another time. In that time frame he and I have, as far as home cooks go, gotten good enough where we were able to develop this website without feeling like we are being overly cocky about it. Recently, when talking about our personal goals, and how we would go about mentoring friends in the art of cooking. The conversation about the points at which one could be said to have reached levels of “beginner, intermediate, or advance”, have been coming up.

We agreed that there are certain signs that you’ve come to your own as a cook. The ability to take a handful of random ingredients and make a restaurant quality meal, knowing exactly when something is done or nearing it from another room based on sound and smell alone, or simply being able to coordinate a great meal without much, if any, conscious effort. These are skills forged over years of practice, and plenty of error. But that doesn’t always have to be the case.

In the coming weeks, months, and even years, our team will be putting out a new category of recipes that will be, for lack of a better way of putting it, skill builders. These will have timed “breaks” built into them so that you can practice the aforementioned skills. And when things go awry, don’t worry, these recipes will have a degree of error to them that we will have mitigation steps written in so that you can get back on track, or maybe even make the recipe we initially intended for you to make in the first place.

So, stay turned, the first of these is coming in early April…