Hi, I’m Alcuin Crow. I wanted to share a little bit about myself and some thoughts on cooking.

I learned how to cook at an early age and kept teaching myself as I grew older. I’ve worked professionally in food service for over 15 years and feel I’ve learned a lot from the different places I’ve worked. I enjoy trying out new recipes and creating my own recipes, which I like to share with the world without a short story before each one. Food should taste good and be enjoyed; I’ll eat just about anything but tend to lean towards more plant-based meals when possible. As such, the recipes I post may be of many different types and diets.

I like using as many high-quality ingredients in my cooking as possible. For instance, all baking recipes I post use King Arthur Flour. In baking, it’s essential to be mindful of the type of flour you use and its protein content, as differences can significantly affect the outcome of the final dish. With that in mind, cooking should be accessible to everyone, so you should use what you have on hand and what you like. Most recipes are flexible.

Getting started can be daunting if you don’t cook often or at all, especially if your final product doesn’t look the same as the picture in the recipe or the TikTok, and that’s 100% okay. Creating food porn or beautiful plates is an art of food styling, and often if you cook to try and copy the way something looks, you lose out on textures. For instance, sometimes, when you see bright green asparagus, it looks beautiful. It’s bright and pops on the plate visually, but often, it’s not cooked enough to be tender enough to eat. I like to work on getting the textures and flavors down; once you make a recipe enough times, you can think about how to make it more presentable if you’re into that. Food doesn’t have to be Instagram-worthy to be delicious.

TL; DR: ugly food is delicious too.

If you’re new to cooking, some of my best advice is to go slow and take your time, not try to master everything, and not push yourself out of your comfort zone too quickly. Knife skills are essential. Don’t cut yourself, and if you do, care for your injury, clean your knife and cutting board, and throw out anything that comes into contact with your blood. (This should be common sense, but it isn’t.)

While it might sound scary, it’s important to use sharp knives when cooking. Dull knives lead to a higher chance of injury and worse cuts. They struggle with cutting and are prone to slipping. If you don’t have a sharp knife, using a serrated knife is acceptable for most vegetable prep; just be careful with safety first.

I think it helps to work on cooking yourself your favorite foods and meals; it’s a lot more enjoyable to learn how to make yourself your favorite comfort food than it is to try and make something you’ve never had before or, worse, something you’re not even sure you’ll like.

TL; DR: Safety first; take it slow. Start by learning to cook yourself your favorite comfort foods.