Me? A free style cook, whatever I have on hand can go into the pot. I see myself an abstract painter when it comes to cooking. As long as I like it, everything goes. :-)

Al

I cook like a nurse and a mother! hah!
Joann

Appears DH is the exception to the theory. Nearly everyone in his family is either an engineer or programmer. Every job he's had up to this last one has been very process-oriented and depended on exact measurements and methods. He is one of the most logical people I know. I've never seen him measure ANYTHING in the kitchen. He often says, "Enjoy it, because I have no idea if I can duplicate it." He will not bake because he knows he canÂt get good results unless he measures and follows directions.
IÂd say he is the better cook when heÂs in practice. He only gets to cook a few times a year now.

When I worked in restaurants, I was much more precise in the kitchen. When I worked in sales analysis, I became practically OCD about measuring and directions and doing things "just so". Once I got out of those environments, I because more relaxed about it. I still make a recipe as written the first time I make it, but I change, adjust, and tweak it on subsequent makings. Lately I "wing it" quite often, sometimes not knowing exactly what IÂm making until IÂm well into making it. So, I guess IÂm somewhere in the middle.

I'm an engineer, and I used to cook (and do most everything) like the above noted stereotypes, but I got over it. I think it was in my sewing/quilting where I first allowed myself to colour outside the lines, and it was sooooo liberating to learn how to "wing it" and succeed.

Now, my friends find that I am totally unable to follow instructions for anything!

My degree is in criminal law and I work in that field, so I tend to be very organized and detail oriented at work.

However, when I cook, I change this, do that, toss it together, completely the opposite of my business personality and my training.

I often tell people that I have two personalities, at work I'm Angela, the Pitbull. With my friends I'm just Annie, the farmer's kid. So, I guess when I cook, I'm Annie, the farmer's kid.

Annie

I've written on every job I've ever had. While I tend to abbreviate my messages, I really do enjoy this forum!

My cooking is usually by the book because my heart is in the garden. I spend a lot more time working with my plants than I do cooking. As the year goes on, the balance gets less perfect. Right now the weather is getting absolutely lovely and I don't want to go inside until it gets dark.

Like Al, I'm very much freestyle, and I care very little about authenticity - either I like something or I don't, and whether it's authentic or not matters not one bit in that decision. In that sense, I'm non-traditionalist.

As for my professional background, I started college majoring in physics because math and science were my best subjects in high school. However, I quickly decided that that was not how I wanted to spend my professional life, and so I switch to a German/English major, thinking that I would become a writer. After college, I decided that I preferred designing clothes, and so I did that for a few years until I went back to college to get a design degree. In the interim I had also worked as a pastry chef. Today my career is designing furniture for an exclusive high-end furniture company in Los Angeles. It's an extreme job, but I feel that I am an extreme person, in a way, and I've found that I'm not happy unless I am doing something creative. In that sense, I guess I cook more like a writer than an engineer, but I also have the ability to be extremely precise, when I feel that type of whim. I really do not fit into any preconceived categories, unless eccentric is a category, like the 3% fringe that my marketing professor told me that I fit into.

Lars

Hmm, I graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Journalism. So, I guess I cook like a writer because I am a writer. Still, I'm trying to relate that to my cooking. I'm not sure, but I do write in my cookbooks a lot. If I think there is too much salt, I write "too much!!" in the margin. I even write reviews of the recipes in the cookbook. I write "Yuck, forget this" of "DS really liked this" or "needs more chocolate chips" -- that sort of thing.

I'm a Gardener... what ever comes in from the garden (or the Farmers' Market) is what is on for the next meal. I read cookbooks, but rarely use a recipe. I hate the cooking shows.

And I totally agree with you, Jo, I hope the "towers" are a thing of the past.

I wonder how much of it is about how we learned to cook? I learned to bake from a recipe, and there were certain complex dishes, like my mother's arroz con pollo that required a recipe at least as a starting point, but since my father refused to eat "leftovers" my mother made a lot of things, variously called ragout, refrigerator stew, goulash, casserole and the like, which was whatever was in the fridge remade and disguised.

I was so excited when I finally found a good rotary egg beater, during a time when they were scare on the ground, because the only way I knew how to tell if there was enough flour in the blintz pancake batter was the way my mother taught me, the way her aunt taught her, which is to lift the beater out of the measuring cup and feel how much pull there is on it and how the drip off of it is. Not something one can write in a recipe!! And it's always different depending on the eggs and humidity.

I was noticing in the how we learned to cook thread that some of us learned at home and others learned from recipes -- So if you learned to cook from a recipe are you more likely to use a recipe now? To be more "engineer"? If you learned more holistically, more artistically, do you now follow recipes?

A few years ago it was in vogue to take a test called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which determined personality types according to four characteristics. These types supposedly correlated with choice of occupations and such things. They would probably correspond to cooking styles too. For a while peoples' Myers-Briggs threatened to replace astrological signs as a cocktail party ice-breaker.

I don't know if Myers-Briggs is still being widely used. FWIW, I'm an INTJ. Has anyone else here taken it?

Jim

I was a Psychology teacher for 12 years, and I always wonder how the food feels about being eaten. Hee Hee. JK.
I use recipes, and usually always make them the way they were written the first time, then feel free to change, add, subtract. However, sometimes here lately I do this change thing BEFORE I make the recipe, which is unusual for me.
I am very analytical, love logic, balance, etc, but I also have a very creative artistic side. So, I guess I cook both ways, but am starting to be more creative.
Interesting thread jojoco.
Sherry

INFP here. But danged if I can remember what that stands for without looking it up.

Probably all of the above for me. I am happiest when I am in the kitchen creating a meal. I use recipes for guidelines and ideas, but then do my own thing once I start cooking. That is a blessing and a curse. While it's made for some memorable meals, I can't always replicate them since I often add ingredients that happen to catch my eye or imagination. Visual preparation is also important to me. I suppose that is from working in restaurants for years. I also find the prep work and methodology to be important to me.I always had an artistic bent, but I currently work in Human Resources, Payroll and Accounting. Those three vocations came much later in life to me.

I knew a carpenter that could cook anything he saw.

There was an electrician that constantly came up with shocking ideas.

How about the butcher that backed into the grinder and got a little behind in his orders.

I was once the neighbor of a very wealthy mystery writer. Everyday there was a plate of chopped meat left at my door and I often thought "what a generous fella", until I realized that the butler did it.

I worked with a dentist who loved to cook. Everything he made was so filling.

I knew many other people from a myriad of professions but I don't want to to bore you...

michaelp

Very cute, Michael, LOL.

Annie

Cute, Michael.

I'm like tricia. As an artist (photographer, writer, stained glass maker, etc.) I know the value of practicing skills. A ballerina doing 'barre' exercises every day to teach her body to do the impossible. The value of singing scales, or doing finger exercises, or writing Morning pages is part of the success of the artist. Boring, maybe, but essential. It's like a baseball player taking batting practice and shagging flyballs...keep the skills in order so they are *there* and ready to use when it's time.

For me a recipe is like those exercises. A recipe reminds me of proper form and execution. I also like knowing I'll get excellent results from my time, energy, and ingredients. I'm happy to alter a recipe as needed--next time--, but I'm training myself to do it 'their' way first. I write in cookbooks, too. Or rewrite the entire, revised recipe completely.

I got rid of my Rachel Ray cookbooks a couple of years ago because her recipes were too loosey-goosey for me. Not reliable. Give me an Alton Brown, America's Test Kitchen, Southern Living recipe or Cooking Forum recipe any day.

So, I cook like a writer, but I see the underlying structure and plot of the recipe as essential.

Fascinating question.

Happy, I like what you said. I've been sort of a.d.d in my career and training. Over the years, I've attended some classes in journalism, biology, almost signed up for nutrition school, (and regret not going through with that one) and nursing school, before settling on horticulture. I was also a sahm for many years, so I can't pinpoint exactly whether I'm right brained or left brained. I'm pretty mixed blood, with my father having been very left brained and my mother extreeeeeeeemly right brained, so that might be why I've been confused about career choices. And, I guess it shows in my cooking as well. I can be very anal, especially while baking, measuring and weighing the ingredients with as much precision as possible, but I frequently read a recipe and decide I don't like the amount of sugar or oil, and play with it. As for cooking, I frequently follow recipes, but I also just as frequently throw things together, usually because I don't have all the ingredients for the recipe and I don't want to go to the store.

I think it was Julia Child that said men are more experimental in the kitchen than women. I don't know if that's true or false, but in my household, it's true. DH is much more open to experimenting than I am...but he's an artist. So there you go.

Sally

Well, I'm a mechanical engineer and I pretty much cook like one. Oh sure, I know how to make things without a recipe, but it's only because I've made them so many times!

Maybe that's why I like baking so much, because I have an excuse to be my typical OCD self.

Oh, and I'm ISTJ, by the way.

Funny I'm a number cruncher all day but a free sprit in the kitchen. The only time I measure or weigh is when I bake. I have started measuring as I free hand creatively cook so my OCD daughter can have recipes to cook with!

I never thought about my cooking as a left brain vs right brain thing but I guess I'm unusual, precise all day at work then cook on whimsy when I get home. I guess I have an alter ego. :-)

I came to post pretty the same thing as Moosemac, my design work has to be precise and often small and fill a specific requirement. When I do personal work I like to be loose and large. I approach cooking in much the same way.

INTJ = introversion/intuition/thinking/judgement
INFP = introversion/intuition/feeling/perception
ISTJ = introversion/sensing/thinking/judgement

Unfortunately, the everyday meanings of those words don't help much to interpret the personality types. You need to know the definitions set up by the psychologists who designed the questionnaire. It gets pretty technical. A practical application of Myers-Briggs is career counseling, which relates to this thread.

An interpretation of my personality type would probably explain why I even bother to post this. :-)

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Myers-Briggs

I've taken it -- several times. We were encouraged to take it in college by our degree department. Some years later a employer had everyone take it, then a few years later I volunteered for a study to help a friend's daughter who was doing some sort of study for her degree and took it again.
Seems like everyone I know who has taken the test is an INTJ or ISTJ. Birds of a feather?

I am not sure I have ever followed a recipe exactly how it was written, I always make substitutions that I think will make it work better. I also have a whole collection of personal dishes that have no precise instructions.

I am trying to teach my husband to cook. He will ask me how long something needs to cook and the best I can say is "until it is done". Everyone knows that right?

This question is hilarious!!! My husband is an engineer and I am NOT!! We have very different cooking styles but both produce good food (at least I think so anyways).

There are pros and cons to both styles and I have to admit we drive each other crazy with our different styles. He is very slow and methodical, cannot multitask (answer the phone, clean as he goes), and he stops moving when he starts talking...which can make for late dinners! However, he takes meticulous notes and because of this, he never repeats a mistake! He is really good at things like prime rib and other large cuts of meat.

I am messy, sometimes I forget ingredients, and I do not write things down like I should. Sometimes I'll make a meal and he'll ask that I write it down for future reference, but by that time...it's too late! But, I can multitask (watch TV, clean as I go, talk to kids), I use ingredients we have on hand, and I can make dinner fast!!

I must admit - I've been mulling my answer to this question since it was first posted. I think my dilemma comes from the fact that I have undergrad degrees is BOTH Computer Science and Fine Arts, and have my MBA (focus software design) and well on my way to an MFA (3-D Design). So does my formal education make me logical or artistic? LOLOLOL! My cooking style is closer to "read the recipe then do what I think is to my taste" and I almost never follow a recipe to a tee. Probably where I differ from the Architect types is that I don't like my food over-arranged for presentation either. Those unnaturally tall towers of food are ridiculous and if I give it more than a cursory though, completely disgusting, IMO.

Any plate that is over composed is gruesome to me, not from the artistic/architect point of view, but from the germ-o-phobe perspective. My stomach turns at the thought of someone putting their fingers on EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF FOOD when it gets put on the plate. I mean really, do I know their hands are pristinely clean? Has that individual just been excavating in his left nostril before he placed that tomato "just so"? Do I know she has not been digging out that month old store of ear wax with the same index finger that is now coaxing those chocolate curls to impossible heights? Unless I know you REALLY well and am not repulsed by your personal habits, keep your grubby paws off my food.

Alexa

My husband, a retired journalist who clarifies, quantifies, checks and rechecks every conversation we have, (Hub: "Did we get any mail today?" Me: "No, Nothing important." Hub, 2 minutes later: "What was the mail today?" Me: "Not much." Hub: "Where's the mail?" Me: "There was only junk mail today." Hub: "Any personal correspondence in the mail today?" Me: "No, dear. Just junk. It's in the recycle bin." Hub: "Did you go through the mail already?" It's kind of a game we play, I guess, but he does this for everything) is a great cook who never read a recipe or followed any kind of direction (for assembling things, for instance). When it comes to cooking, writing (other than his award-winning reporting), poetry, painting, photography, music, he is completely and utterly free. A very interesting, contemplative, thoughtful, funny, fair, calm genius of a man. Lucky me!

"Birds of a feather?"

Probably. Rare birds at that. IIRC, INTJs are about 1.5% of the population.

Jim

LOL, Sherrman, Elery and I have repeat conversations like that all the time. He says he doesn't have a hearing problem, he has a listening problem. (grin).

Although he is a licensed electrician and his favorite job was as a electric trader, buying and selling electricity(very fast paced, buy low/sell high stock market kind of trading) he now is in supervision, his MBA is in business/human resources/egonomics. I don't know how that relates to his cooking style at all because he never follows a recipe, just throws whatever he can find into a pot, adds cumin nearly every time because he loves it, (me not so much) and makes something. Don't ask him how he made it, he doesn't even know because he doesn't write it down, doesn't keep track, just tastes and adds until it's "good enough".

He does not like to bake because he doesn't like to measure ANYTHING.

Annie

"...his MBA is in business/human resources/egonomics" Annie, I bet that's a useful degree, since I imagine there's plenty of big egos in the upper echelons of business! lol

Mandyk, multitasking - yep, my dh is very much like yours in that department.

Sally

While I have often told Hub that he has a listening problem, in his case I don't think it's just that. He is always listening for for nuances, and he can hear and digest three or four conversations in a room at once and not miss a sing word! Every journalist (and a lot of lawyers) I know is that way. Then they go back and rework questions until the "interview" says what they really meant. I can't do that at all.

Every day I watch stocks trade and wonder how a person could possibly do that! My nerves would be shot after an hour.

Sherry

Having administered and taken MBTI (Myers-Briggs) numerous times, I always hoped for a different outcome but I am a hard ISTJ. We each had signs posted on our office door indicating our type so we would know how to interface with one another. Everyone seemed to focus on the J in me.

Anyway, back to the question. I guess my answer is found in the recent revelation that I love the "Cooking for Engineers" blog. It suits my requirements for cooking something new.

I never follow a recipe, not even the first time I make something. And I very seldom ever measure anything. Recipes, as far as I am concerned are just a guideline and that goes for baking as well. This is the way I have always cooked.

So even recipes that I make repeatedly are a little different every time.

I understand an "engineer type " being exact, but it surprises me that some of our artist types are also very exact. I would have thought that an artist would be the creative type in the kitchen.

Ann

INFP = introversion/intuition/feeling/perception is SO me!

I'm surprised no one has linked to this web site...

Here is a link that might be useful: cooking for engineers

Interesting post. I guess I cook like a writer. I bake like an engineer.

It's nice to know there are fellow INTJs around here.

I took that test hoping for some revelation and it told me my number one career choice should be a computer programmer. Arghh!!

My basic, everyday, just-get-a-meal-on-the-table style of cooking is "fast, easy, and cheap".

However, I have NEVER engaged in any profession normally associated with that saying! :>)

In baking, which I love, I always follow the recipe exactly the first time I make it.

After that, I feel free to make changes to improve it to our tastes.

Rusty

I do have a wall of cookbooks. I firmly believe that one must have a good knowledge of the fundamentals of classic cuisine. One must know the rules to know when to break them. :) With my personal art I cherish the happy creative accident and leave space for that to occur within the structure of good technique and composition.

I am an INFJ. Supposedly, less than 1% of the population. Interesting test.

Ann, it doesn't surprise me at all that artists are detail oriented. For instance, artists take the study of anatomy seriously. Mastery of details will be evident in the artwork. Think about artists such as Remington and Michelangelo...both were masters of detailed anatomy. If I'd focus more on math my perspective drawings would be better. I consistently got As in anatomy. I believe my life drawings reflect the efforts I put into those classes (especially quick studies). The use of color comes naturally, to me. But studying color theory gave me the knowledge to expand & vastly improve my palette. Many excellent artists have to study color. Same with music. Music is not happestance. Music has been described as audible math. Without solid fundamentals artistry is lost in chaos. Same is true with cooking. You have developed those solid fundamentals & apply them to your cooking without conscious thought...but they underly every meal you prepare & it shows.

/tricia

I'm an Infj also tricia...and a professional artist.
I always like finding other infjs. Lots of them are artists.

Arley, that's the blog that I referenced. I really like it.

Tricia, I really agree with your comments on foundation studies in art or music before innovation; nothing is as annoying as some unskilled self-indulgent solipsist dribbling chaos on a canvas and calling it art. Look at Degas' early academic stuff; they are exquisitely accurate, and they didn't interfere at all with his later, freer stuff. And don't get me started on amateur musicians who refuse to learn to read music because they say it would interfere with their creativity--bunk.

I don't really see that big of a left brain/right brain divide; you need a certain amount of knowledge on which you can build creatively. If you don't know that water boils at 212 degrees, and that a system can't get hotter than that whenever water is present, you'll never know that that's why Julia Child says to pat chunks of beef dry before browning them--otherwise they steam instead of having those yummy browning Maillard reactions.

Someone once said that a society that does not respect both plumbers and philosophers is doomed, because neither their pipes nor their theories will hold water.

I love this question. Can't answer it, but very interesting!

I work in Documentation, but have some ability to be creative with it. I provide the instructions (with photos that I take....very amateurishly) for manufacturing products. I can set up pages of instructions however I like. The content and process have to be precise and accurate, but visually there's room to make them my own.

In the kitchen, I rarely follow a recipe and can't duplicate what I make. I hate to measure, except in baking, and even then I just scoop flour and shake 'til level-ish. I've used my kitchen scale to brag about the weight of a tomato more than weigh ingredients! LOL

Recipes are just ingredient lists and general process guidelines for me. On a rare occasion I'll follow to a tee, but I hate it!

Meals are planned around what needs to be used up in the fridge/freezer. Like now, I know I need to eat up last years frozen asparagus because it's almost time for fresh stuff! Sometimes I look in the pantry/fridge/freezer and see a couple of ingredients that trigger a thought about something to make.

This is very similiar to how my mom cooked. Recipes for baking, wing with everything else.

Deanna

Alexa,
You're in extraordinary company.
As Julia Child so famously said (paraphrased) "if the presentation on your plate is beautiful, you know someone's fingers have been ALL over it!"

I'm a career mutt. My early days was spent as a musician and writer, middle years- manual grunt and restaurant guy, and the last 15 years- college computer instructor, curriculum developer and aerospace technical writer.

How this mish mash of right brain, left brain exercise has affected my cooking is interesting I suppose. I take on new kitchen challenges often but proceed each challenge with a lot of research; immersing myself in methods, techniques, and existing science. Once saturated with this background noise, I plunge into the kitchen with an artist's pallete and tasting spoon. The technical me needs to have an inderstanding of what I'm getting into while the musician in me jams and modulates with the smells, tastes, and inspiration that occurs "on stage".

As a solo acoustic guitarist, the few times I took the stage without ample practice and preparation, happen to coincide directly with the few times that I left the stage in embarrasmment or disappointment. Cooking has been similar; the first time I made a white sauce without researching it first, I discovered silly putty. My first loaf of bread was harder than a moon rock.

michaelp

Jo

And we all know that Julia is a Culinary Goddess! LOL!

Alexa

On the Briggs-Myer scale, I am an ENTP (aka "Inventor/Innovator") and also the polar opposite of an accountant. I've taken several variations of the test, and the results are always the same, and so I guess it is an accurate description of my personality type. It also describes what I do at work, since I have to invent new furniture parts as well as create (or "invent") new furniture designs. I've never met another ENTP, however, and so I guess we do not flock together, as we might compete with each other or otherwise clash. Although my brother is an artist, he did not get the artist personality when he took the test. I think it is more difficult to pin down the personality of an artist. He does come out as introverted, however, which is one of the main differences between us. I have a bit of trouble understanding introversion, since it is not a fundamental part of my personality. I also do not understand how people can be camera-shy, since that was never part of my personality.

Lars

Keep in mind that there are different kinds of engineers. Not just different specialties, but also different philosophies of engineering education. MIT, at least back in the day, focused on developing engineering judgment, and not just following directions. In fact, we dismissively called following directions without understanding the underlying principles "cookbooking."

My cooking certainly follows this approach. I love to read recipes to get ideas, but I always adapt things to my pantry, equipment, and taste. I was keeping house a dozen years before I learned that there were good cooks who wouldn't even try a recipe if they couldn't follow it exactly as written!

To me, a chemical engineer, cooking is the most challenging kind of chemistry, with an amalgam of physical, chemical and biological and physiological reactions. Navigating these can be one heck of a challenge, but the worst outcome is a lousy meal, while the best is sheer delight.

LOL, Sally, I think "egonomics" would be even more useful than his real degree "ergonomics. The only time he ever used that was once he was asked about ordering office chairs, then they bought something else that was cheaper, LOL.

I couldn't do the trading thing either, Sherry, although I guess it could be fun to spend someone ELSE'S money for a change.

Oh, and I've never taken nor heard of that particular personality test so I can't conjecture on what my personality might be.

Annie