I can feed myself, but advanced cooking science escapes me. I cover the basics and essentially consume like a hunter-gatherer. Raw (or fire grilled) is simple, effective, and doesn’t leave behind all sorts of waste (my biggest gripe with anything that is cooked and sold quickly, wrapped in paper and plastic). I only really indulge in a group setting. It becomes a part of the social ritual.
For instance… Yea, I’ll tell you about this. I made a bacon explosion. I purchased the finest of everything. Awesome smoked bacon, sausage from an obscure shop in the city that was recommended by foodie confidants. The BBQ sauce flowed like molasses. I planned each step in spite of the Internet’s numerous sources on how to prepare it. I slaved over that fucker. If a man could pour his soul into culinary creation, I did it. The crowning achievement was not the product of my vision, but the confounded faces of the BBQ goers who had no clue what to make of it.
“You grab a beer. You break yourself off a piece of that. You sit down and thank me.”
And they did. That night became a part of the myth I leave behind.