The Inspiration Round-Up

A dozen or so different ways (that aren't CWD) to get inspired to cook

I was browsing through some old notes in my phone recently¹ and saw a list of goals I wrote down during college. Among some softballs² like “go surfing in another country³”, “see a bighorn sheep in the wild⁴”, “see a lion on an African safari⁵,” was a sneaky tough goal: “Learn to cook, well.”

What an ephemeral goal: cooking, well. What does that even mean? How do I know if I’ve achieved it?⁶

I’d be willing to state out loud that I am a pretty good cook. I feel pretty confident in the kitchen. If I were thrown into cooking dinner with limited notice, I think I could do a pretty decent job at it. But can I cook well? I don’t know.

What I do know is the only way to get there is by, well, cooking⁷. And that’s why I write this newsletter — both for you, the reader, to cook, and for me, the writer, to reduce⁸ “cooking” into a few paragraphs.

In order to practice cooking, though, you need something to cook. Despite how it may seem, recipes don’t appear out of the ether. Almost everything we cook here is inspired by something else. Especially early on in my “cooking” education, I was consuming⁹ tons of culinary material — blogs, magazine article, cookbooks, you name it.

And there is a lot out there. It can be overwhelming for someone who just is trying to find something to cook for dinner that night, let alone planning out a whole week¹⁰. And since I only write one recipe a week, you certainly can’t rely on CWD to get you everything you need!

So, since we’re in the hazy period between holidays, I figured I’d post a quick round-up of places I like to go for inspiration. There’s a mix of media here, but please drop a comment if you have a place for recipes you really like — even if it’s a competitive newsletter! Always looking to expand my radar.

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Websites

1. NYT Cooking. This is probably our most used resource for meal inspiration. The app is phenomenal, the recipes mostly well-written and easy to follow, and the comments are surprisingly helpful. I like to use this when I have an idea of what I want to make, but not sure exactly how to execute. The highly rated recipes are a great jumping off point to the kind of embodied¹¹ cooking we like to do here at CWD. If you buy or subscribe to only one thing I recommend, make it this.

2. Bon Appetit. I don’t use this as often, but the “What to Cook Tonight” section generally has some good ideas if you’re totally at a loss. It also gave us this recipe for pasta e fagioli, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful.

3. Mother Tongue Cooking Club
   . Myles Snider's culinary interests have some significant overlap with mine. I think we've posted similar recipes, completely unknowingly, within days of each other on a number of occasions. That's okay, though, because he also has some great recipes. He also posts some good content on Twitter. Don’t tell him I consider MTCC to be CWD’s arch rival!

4. Half-Baked Harvest. This one is admittedly pretty “basic",” but there are a lot of good, easy recipes on here. You can skim through a few pages and quickly find something work making if you’re in a rut.

5. A Small and Simple Thing
   . Looking for restaurant recommendations the first time I visited Charleston, Leon's was one of the most suggested. I recently came across Brook Reitz’s, the proprietor’s, newsletter. Nice weekly recipe and other cooking advice. Worth a subscription if only because Brooks also loves Good cottage cheese¹².

Cookbooks

Live look at a piece of our cookbook collection. I suppose we really lean into barbecue.

1. The Southern’s Cookbook. This is a staple in our house, and provided the inspiration for shrimp and grits, pimento cheese, and countless other recipes we make. Plus, the storytelling is great but not overwhelming.

2. No-Recipe Recipes. A huge influence on CWD, this book by Sam Sifton of NYT Cooking, gives outlines for meals. Tuna melt and radicchio toast come to mind here, but also miso-glazed hake and others I’m sure.

3. Serial Griller. A fun one for the summer, but equally applicable year round. Straight-forward recipes (for the most part) that keep you out of the kitchen and around the grill.

4. Field Notes for Food Adventure. Brad Leone is a funny dude¹³ and this book has some great recipes, enlightening writing, and a nice focus on local, seasonal ingredients. The recipe for mushroom sauce is alone worth the price of admission¹⁴.

Other

1. Chopped. I’ve written before about how formative Chopped was to my cooking style. I think if you watched a few seasons and paid attention, you’d come out at the end with a pretty good sense of what works and what doesn’t when you’re in the kitchen. I also will always throw out Knife Fight for similar vibes at a higher level of intensity.

2. As weird as it may sounds, a lot of magazines generally have pretty decent recipes. I’ve cribbed from GQ, Esquire, Men’s Health, Outside, and many more. In fact, one of my favorite roast chicken recipes¹⁵ from GQ. I still have the photo of the recipe saved in "favorites" in my phone photos.

3. Likewise, you might just be reading a book and be inspired to cook. I certainly was!

4. Talk to your parents. I know Mrs. CWD and I often riff on recipes (if not copying outright) that we grew up on. Nana CWD’s brisket and G-Ma’s shrimp pesto pizza both make frequent appearances¹⁶ on our menu.

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So there’s a decent baseline for inspiration. There are no end to the places you can find a good recipe, so, as with many things in life, I’ve found it’s best to be open minded. Browse the magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store, pick up local newspapers at the farm stand — there are recipes everywhere¹⁷ and I trust your judgement to determine pretty quickly if they’re worth trying. And after making them, you’ll know pretty quickly if they’re worth making again.

Maybe that’s the secret to “cooking, well.” Being able to recognize what you like, what you will like, and what others will like — and then, conjure that out of nothing but raw ingredients in the kitchen. I can’t say if I’m quite there yet, but I certainly feel closer than I did when I first started cooking for myself in the kitchen on Ossippee Road¹⁸.

With that, I’ll leave you to your weekends. Get some sleep, get outside, and drink some water. You owe it to yourself. Next week it’s Christmas-time!

PS — the art in today’s post comes from feeding the prompt “a painting of newton getting inspired by an apple falling on his head, as painted by Roy Lichtenstein” to DALL-E, an artificial intelligence… thing. Pretty wild, huh?

1. After making this comment on Twitter. I was being semi-facetious, but anyone who knows me knows I, like a very wise dog, believe that “that which we manifest is before us.”

Lou Tamposi @cowwedoin

@sc_sager @tylertringas This is exactly why it's so important to write your goals down on a piece of paper and then immediately burn the paper and never speak of it again. Set the intention and let the universe do the rest.

2. Softballs meaning in straightforwardness to attaining, not necessarily in simplicity of attaining.

3. Ireland, 2011.

4. Colorado, 2017; Montana, 2022.

5. Botswana, 2018.

6. Clearly I had not heard of SMART goals when I wrote that one down.

7. Pun! (Get it?)

8. Pun!

9. Pun!

10. This is something Family CWD still struggles with — Saturday mornings are spent flipping through cookbooks and recipes trying to figure out what the heck we’re going to eat that week… so I can then get the proper ingredients when I go shopping.

11. Hi,

Sam Sager

!

12. Also recommended in that post are diver sponges from Tarpon Springs, Florida — which is a predominately Greek fishing town on the Gulf, about an hour and a half from where I grew up. Lots of field trips there through middle school, so it was hilarious to see it show up in my inbox 20 years later.

13. “It’s Alive!” is hilarious and informative.

14. Though you could just make the mushroom base for Beef Stroganoff and get 90% of the way there for free.

15. Mix equal parts melted butter, soy sauce, and honey in a medium bowl. Pat down a whole chicken and slather in the soy-honey-butter mixture. Toss in the oven, pre-heated to 375(F), for about 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of the bird, and then crank the heat to 425(F)+ for 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the skin has shellacked itself.

16. Just don’t expect to see Nana CWD’s “Hobo Chicken” on the menu any time soon!

17. Our go-to recipe for mushroom risotto came from the Brooks Brother’s “menswear” blog, circa early 2010’s, believe it or not.

18. ‘Sup Reed, Owen.