Until a couple of years ago we lived in San Francisco, known throughout the greater Bay Area as “the city”. You’re at a social gathering and somebody asks, “Where do you guys live?” and we say, “We live in the city”, no further explanation required. We moved to a town 40 miles away that, while not exactly bereft of grocery stores, does not have the variety or quality of fresh foods I became accustomed to in the city. For us it’s a 30 mile round trip to a grocery store with the kinds of products I, in my food snobbish way, prefer.

When we lived in the city, every day my wife would ask, “What’s for dinner tonight?” Sometimes, if I had decided to make one of the staple dishes on rotation, like carbonara or quesadillas or the like, I could say specifically, carbonara or quesadillas or the like. More often than not though I would answer, “I don’t know, I haven’t been to the store yet.” Or, if I had been to the store that day I might answer broadly, “chicken” or “fish” or “pork” or, whatever.

I used to make daily trips to the store because I could and I had several to choose from near where we lived. Not being a planner I couldn’t focus on anything beyond the next dinner. I believed that this daily shopping routine allowed me to be a more spontaneous cook, starting afresh every day. Now that the ‘good’ grocery stores are a long drive away I have had to change my perspective and surprisingly, it has not seriously limited the spontaneity I so much enjoy about cooking. Typically our once a week shopping trip will include a protein or two, lots of vegetables and a resupply of pantry staples.

I still get the same, “what’s for dinner tonight” though, and the answer is usually the same, “I don’t know yet”. That’s because I often don’t know what the finished dish is going to be until it’s actually on the plate. I review what’s in the fridge and pantry and pull out a bunch of ingredients and consider for a minute what I might put together. Sometimes I do a “random” dinner (a term coined by my daughter) where I raid the fridge to repurpose leftovers and put something together.

So how does that work? Well, when I did my daily shopping I would cruise the grocery store isles waiting to be inspired or I might have a germ of an idea I want to develop. I would usually start by choosing a protein; chicken, pork, fish, etc. Then I’d think of a preparation method; sauté, roast, grill, etc. Next I would think how it might be served; with a sauce perhaps, or some kind of salsa? A salad maybe. Or perhaps just simple veg and a starch. All of this is building a mental image of what will end up on the table. So I would gather some bits and head home to the kitchen. It’s not too much different now with my fridge and pantry substituting for the grocery store isles.

I check the fridge and pantry to see what I have; vegetables, condiments, cheeses, fresh or dried fruits, sauces, etc., and I drag all this stuff out. Having it all in front of me reminds me that I have all these things whether I use them for today’s dinner or not. It also offers an opportunity to check ‘best by’ dates and determine if some of these foods need to be in the compost bin as well as what needs to be added to the shopping list for the next grocery store run.

So then I start to cook and I get into a zone, my happy place if you like, where my sole focus is on the immediate task at hand. Having reviewed my collection of ingredients I decide on a direction I want to take. However, new ideas spring to mind as I go and I am constantly making spontaneous course changes. So what may have started as oven baked chicken breast with a creamy tarragon/mustard sauce and mashed potatoes might well end up being poached chicken breast with a sweet pepper and onion sauté on a bed of polenta.

My style of cooking is pretty much based on that kind of spontaneity and while that works for me it doesn’t necessarily work for others. Conveying my thought processes in words in the form of a written recipe is difficult because in the process there are dozens of minor but critical steps. Much of the subtle complexities of the finished dish come from these essential little steps. Writing all that down just makes the recipe seem even more daunting but leaving them out won’t produce the same result. When someone asks for the recipe it seems long and complicated but for me it is just the culmination of one idea leading to another and another. Taken one step at a time it is pretty straight forward but seen as a whole I can understand how others might see it as complicated. In my recipes I try to find a balance between providing enough information to reproduce the dish and making the recipe as accessible as possible.

And that’s how “cooking on the fly” works for me. You have to know what the rules of cooking are first before you can be comfortable bending and manipulating them to your will. That only comes with time, patience and lots of practice. When I first started cooking I used to slavishly follow a recipe to the letter. It was many years before I had enough confidence and experience to branch out and go off script. To this day I still get it wrong sometimes. Cooking is a never ending learning experience.