I met once a left handed dentist who had a difficult time finding a clinic to work with, as all the clinics he looked into had equipment set for right handed people.  He couldn’t deal with this equipment, as a dentist he wanted to be able to work comfortably with his stronger hand.  He ended up having to open his own clinic, making big expenses to get left-handed equipment for him.

In the kitchen, left handed face similar problems.  The regular kitchen equipment is made for right handed, and can be difficult to operate for the left handed.  Some lefties are able to adapt and work everything with their right hand, but others find it a lifetime struggle.  I think the most common problematic tool is the can opener:  It is set to be held with your right hand.  There is no way to handle a regular can opener with your left hand, and lefties will have to struggle to open with it.

Kitchen knives are another problematic story:  They are sharpened in a way that makes them cut better when used with the right hand.

Well, left handed cooks don’t have to suffer:  There are tools available for lefties.  They are not always available in your around-the-corner store, but they are indeed worth the effort to look for them in some bigger store, or order them online.  It makes life so much easier to have tools that are fit for your needs.  You don’t have to struggle each time you want to open a tuna can or cut the meat.

Here are some tools I found on Amazon:

A left handed can opener:

A kitchen knife for the left handed that can be found in Amazon:

This knife is on the expensive side, but can make for a wonderful Christmas or birthday gift for a left handed person who likes to spend time in the kitchen.

And here you can find some other kitchen tools for the left handed that are for sale in Amazon.

This means that at any given time in your cooking learning cycles there is quite probably someone somewhere that is better and/or worse at cooking than you. Take heart from this because even the best have bad days when it comes to cooking.  There are many people who cook for different reasons.  Some cook in order to eat and survive, while others cook because they actually enjoy the process of cooking.  Some cook during times of emotional upheaval and others cook out of sheer boredom.  Whatever your reason for cooking or learning to cook is, you should always begin with the basics.

The first thing that you need to learn is what the different terminology you will find in recipes actually means. There are many new and sometimes foreign sounding terms that you will find in common recipes. These terms can mean the difference in recipe success or failure.  You should be able to find a good section in any inclusive cookbook that explains the different definitions for unfamiliar terminology.  If you aren’t absolutely certain what is meant by “folding in the eggs” it is in your best interests to look it up.

Another great bit of advice when it comes to cooking basics is to try simpler recipes for a while and then expand your horizons to the more complex recipes that abound.  Most recipes will have a little note about their degree of difficulty and you can read through the recipe to see whether or not it is something you are interested in preparing or confident that you can prepare.  Remember Rome wasn’t built in a day and it will take quite some time to build a reliable ‘repertoire’ of recipes to work into your meal planning rotation.

The good news is that once you’ve learned the basics of cooking it is unlikely that you will ever need to relearn them.  This means that you can constantly build up and expand your cooking skills.  As you learn new recipes and improve your culinary skills and talents you will discover that preparing your own meals from scratch is much more rewarding than preparing prepackaged meals that are purchased from the shelves of your local supermarkets.

You will also discover as your experience and confidence grows that you will find yourself more and more often improvising as you go and adjusting recipes to meet your personal preferences.  If you prefer more or less of ingredients or want to make a recipe a little more or less spicy in flavor you can make simple adjustments along the way in order to achieve this goal.  In other words you will begin in time to create recipes of your very own.  And that is something you won’t necessarily learn when it comes to basic cooking skills for beginners but you would never learn if you didn’t master those basic cooking skills.

Anyway, I want to give here another chicken recipe.  This recipe actually makes for an almost full meal:   Add some other side dish, as rice, and you have a full meal.  It is also well liked by children.

Ingredients:

1 full chicken cut up into 8 pieces

frying oil

flour

1 big chopped onion

1 peeled and grated apple

1 full tablespoon curry

salt

black pepper

100 gr tomatoe sauce (3.5 0z)

200 gr frozen peas (7 oz)

Instructions:

1. Fry the oinion in oil till golden, than take the onion out of the frying pan and put aside.
2. Flour the chicken pieces and fry them in the same frying pan.  Roll them over so that they are golden on all sides.
3. Add the apple, salt, black pepper, curry, tomatoe sauce, peas and onion.  Cover evrything up with water and cook for 45 minutes.

That’s it!

Serve with rice – the rice will be delicious with the gravy of this dish.

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So what tools do we need?

Pots, pans and skillets are essentials.  You should choose them to be made of conductive materials, and of heavier gauge.  This allows the pans to heat evenly avoiding hot spots, which may lead to part of the food sticking to your pan or scorch when cooking.  Don’t just stop by at your local mass market retailer and get the cheapest pans you find.  Take some time, and if you afford it, don’t be afraid to spend some money on better quality pots for you kitchen.  It is worth it.

Another important ingredient in today’s kitchen is kitchen knives.  Your knives are an investment you shouldn’t have to make too often in your lifetime.  Select a good set and be prepared to spend money for it. Unless you had the experience of using cheap quality knifes, you will not understand how much high quality knifes is important.

When choosing your new set of knifes, try also their handles to see if they feel comfortable enough. . If you do a lot of chopping and cutting during your meal preparation and cooking you will want to make sure that the knives you are using feel comfort

able in your hands.   You will also need a set of steak knives for cutting through meats and other fibrous foods, and a butcher knife to break down large meats.

We cannot forget also the simple mundane tools, which we all need:  a good can opener, a measure spoon, a measuring cup, a kitchen scale.  No kitchen can function without these.  And of course also a good grater.  Some people feel they are satisfied with the pre shredded cheese products they do not need their own grater.  But this is not true:  First of all, pre grated cheese does not have that touch of quality that freshly grated cheese provides.  Secondly, cheese is not the only thing you will want to grate.  Many recipes involve grated vegetables like carrots, squash etc.

What else do we need?

There are also all the electric tools.  Every kitchen will have some combination of these.  Some people cannot imagine preparing a cake without a mixer.  Others will mix by hand, but will still need a whisk to whip egg whites.  Some people will have a mixer.  The options are many:  You can have a toaster, a microwave, a crock pot.  Modern life creates more an more needs and tools.

My kids have “seasons”.  For a long period string beans were the best side dish I could give them.  Than the passed to ignoring any string beans dish.  Today, it’s something in the middle:  Sometimes they will eat, sometimes they won’t.

Anyway, the recipe I want to write here bellow is a good and easy one.  Even if your kids will not taste it, it is still worthwhile cooking:  As I said, it is easy, and tasty for you, if not for the rest of the family.  So here it goes:

Ingredients:

1 Kg string beans

1 Kg diced beef or mutton meat

2 grated red tomatoes

6 pealed and sliced garlic cloves

black pepper

1/2 teaspoon baharat spice

1/4 teaspoon cinamon

1/4 teaspoon turmeric spice

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

Directions:

• Dice the meat and simmer it in a wide pot toghether with the tomatoes and garlic.
• Add all spices and cook the meat for an hour on small fire, till the meat is soft.  Add water if needed.
• Add clean string beans – cut them into halves so that they are not too long.  Some people cut them also along their length so that you get short half string beans – I am too lazy for that.  I just buy frozen cut string beans.
• Cook for another hour on small fire till the sauce thickens.

That’s it!