I used to watch my yiayia make phyllo by hand. She would cover the entire kitchen table in butter, spread out the dough with a wooden dowel that I just remember using as a lightsaber every time she put it down, and spend hours folding and rolling and mopping melted butter across it.

So much butter.

Eventually her arthritis made her give it up and she started using the frozen stuff, but she loved cooking and she was proud to make everything from scratch.

The recipe wasn't complicated, you just need a large enough clean surface that can be covered in butter and a few hours to spend making it. The result is very similar to frozen dough.

It's absurdly easier with a scale. I don't know why the US standardizes to volume.

Cooking is art. Baking is science (chemistry).

What? Baking is super easy. Follow the instructions. That's all there is to it.

Recipe calls for 250g of sugar? Put in 250g. Not 260 (close enough). Follow the instructions. Works every time.

You can wing it with baking, at least for some types of stuff. Oatmeal raisin cookies don't really take precision, as an example.

Fun fact: acrobatics are made with lower hydration dough.

If you want dough with crispy outside and soft inside you're looking for a 65-70% hydration. Acrobatics with this will rip it apart. To open a higher hydration dough you use this technique: https://youtu.be/xzbW8CZx538

I once worked at a Domino's. It took making many pizzas to get to that point, but it was really satisfying stretching out the dough once you got there.

pie crust

...you mean put cold butter, flour, ice water, and a little seasoning in a food processor and blitz until crumbly? Or are you talking about making puff pastry from scratch?

the trick with sharpening knives is to do it wrong and wait for a flock of knive enthousiasts to swarm you and sharpen it for you

That's because they are not for sharpening, they are for honing the blade.

There's your mistake. A steel is not for sharpening. It is for honing - i.e. straightening out a slightly rolled edge. You should do this periodically while or just after each use.

If your knife is dull, a steel is useless. You need to sharpen it on a stone first.

A sharpening steel? https://cdn.cutleryandmore.com/products/large/36.jpg

Try stir fry.

Chop veggies, or if you’re lazy get one of those party trays of pre-chopped veggies. Throw in frying pan with oil. Continually taste test for doneness (helps with hunger). Broccoli might need to be steamed (cover the pan for a minute or so until it’s bright green). Then season with whatever. You can buy pre-mixed seasoning.

Do the protein separately. Cube chicken or pork and fry until it’s not raw. Or just toss it on a George Foreman and cube after.

Rice in a rice cooker.

Presto.

Once you crack the code, it is easy peasy -- but it's very non intuitive until then. Either use a double boiler (I don't recommend this approach, it makes it harder to tell whats going on, reduces your control and makes setup feel like a chorae) ... or buy a few dozen eggs, a couple pounds of butter and a dozen lemons and just practice the sequence until it clicks.

The key is to control the temperature carefully, and keep that temperature homogenous and even... that means knowing how warm and cold your ingredients are, and steady whisking.

Two ways to do it:

• Whisk together eggs, water and lemon juice until the mixture thickens, and then add melted butter slowly (your slowest and most foolproof method)

• Whisk your eggs to aerate them, set them aside. Melt your butter, remove it from the heat and add your (cold) lemon juice and water. Should be about room temp now. Whisk it together and drizzle in the eggs, whisking constantly. Then put it back on the heat and whisk it steadily till it thickens, which will be quite soon.

The first path is the correct way, in that it minimizes the risk of putting the eggs into a hot pan (and curdling them), but it's also slower and more involved. Basically, any way that ensures the eggs are about the same temperature as whatever gets mixed into them, and heated up gradually from there, works.

I do that every day