How I would learn to cook if I could start over.

I want to explain how I would learn to cook if I could start over. Because in the past 7 years, I've made over 400 videos about food and cooking. I've read thousands and thousands of comments, and I've thought about cooking every single one of the past 2,55 days. And over this time, I've come to this realization. The way we teach people how to cook is backwards. So, in this video, I want to explain three things. one, why I wouldn't start by cooking with recipes. Two, why I'd focus on learning how ingredients provide flavor. And third, and most importantly, why you need a cooking system. But before we jump into those, I want to explain where these ideas came from. Because I didn't come up with this all on my own. These are partly lessons that I've learned from all of you. Seven years of seeing what videos resonated with you and which ones didn't, reading your comments, seeing your feedback, and understanding how different people cook in the real world. And I believe that great home cooking is built on three core principles. First is food science and technique, which is understanding the why behind good cooking, but only just enough to help you do the thing. Second is inspiration, which is knowing what is possible in the kitchen and what excites you to cook. And lastly is lifestyle, which is building cooking systems that work for your budget, your schedule, and your goals. And the kicker is learning how to cook can become truly life-changing if you learn these three principles at the same time. Because the tricky part about teaching people how to cook is that no two home cooks are the same. We all live different lives. And what we end up cooking on a given day is not based on an idealized version of cooking, but it's usually just based on our real life constraints. For example, almost all home cooks do not need to know how to perfectly execute the eight basic vegetable cuts on page 622 of the professional chef in order to get dinner on the table on a Tuesday night at 700 p.m. What you do need to know is what are you in the mood for? How much time do you have? How many people are you feeding? What ingredients do you have in your fridge, freezer, and pantry? And what do you know how to make?