If you'd asked me four or five years ago what I thought of my culinary skills, I'd have responded with one of the few praises of myself. If you were to ask me today about my cooking skills four or five years ago, I'd respond by saying that I was a goddamn simpleton at best. I could follow a recipe, but I wasn't making the best food I could make. It wasn't until the pandemic and a lot of food experimentation (and a lot of tips picked up from Hello Fresh) to come to this realization, but I'd say the food Kayla and I make now is of a much, much higer quality. I may not have her natural ability to come up with the perfect mix of spices, but I get by pretty okay these days. In the spirit of late night brevity, here are a few tips we picked up over the course of the last few years.

Salt - My parents (and generations before that) grew up in a world that demonized salt because of health research at the time. As such, I grew up eating a lot of underseasoned food. Shcokingly, salt is very important. And I'm not talking about table salt, which is an abomination that nobody should use. No, I'm talking about ensuring that food is adequately salted while cooking it with a quality kosher salt (I prefer Morton; it has the best flakey properties). Properly salting is the difference between a bland meal and a fantabulous meal. Just be sure to taste as you go. Tasting is important.

Garlic powder - This one Kayla and I discovered for ourselves, but when you season with salt and pepper, add some garlic powder as well. This adds a delightful little bump of flavor to pretty much anything.

Avocado oil rocks - Most would tell you the best neutral oil is extra virgin olive oil. My problem with olive oil is its low smoke point. Kayla tipped me off to avocado oil, which you can use as a drop in replacement. It doesn't impart any flavor but has a high smoke point. Any time a recipe asks for oil, regardless of the application, we reach for avocado.

Roasted veggies - Growing up, the veggies we had were basically reheated straight from a can or frozen and "seasoned" with butter. Let me tell you about a magical way to prepare fresh veggies that's easy and also delicious: roasting. Take your pick of vegetable (pretty much any vegetable), reduce said vegetable into smaller pieces, throw on a baking sheet with salt, pepper, garlic power, and then toss all that together with neutral oil. Roast in a 425F oven for ~15min or when the tops of the veggies start to char, and you're having a good time. Preparing vegetables this way has basically unlocked that entire genre of food to me.

Embrace kitchen gadgets - I was a big fan of Alton Brown growing up, and one of his platitudes was to stay away from the uni-tasker. I'm here to tell you that some uni-taskers are so good at what they do, they deserve to stand alone. The two off the top of my head are the air fryer and the pressure cooker. That bit above about the vegetables? Do that same thing in the air fryer and those vegetables will be just as awesome in less time without pre-heating the whole oven. It also makes the best frozen tater tots. The pressure cooker is like a slow cooker on steroids: all the simplicity in a tiny fraction of the time. I've been making the old family roast recipe straight in the instant pot and we're eating delightfully tender meat in about an hour, not ten. Oh, I'll also toss in a good word for the toaster oven. I actually probably use that more than any other kitchen device.

There are a few of the ways our kitchen ways (or my own preconcieved notions) have change over the last few years, much to the improvement of all the food we make.