The Sober Glow Studio is an extension of what was started on social media circa 2016. As I have evolved, the topics I cover have naturally evolved. Here, I provide stories, recommendations, and resources on the art of living an alcohol-free lifestyle, navigating health & midlife, and anything that simply feels good.
I hope it’s dusk when you sit down to read this email. I hope you have sight of a sunset with an unapologetic fancy mocktail in your hand and a woman’s voice singing jazz in the background. I hope all your distractions are at bay, and if there is another person in the house, they are either standing behind you, massaging your shoulders, or nowhere in sight. Overall, I hope you are feeling good.
After much contemplation over the fact that cooking has never interested me, I realized that it’s not necessarily the act of cooking that scares me, it’s that I have never learned or even had conversations about WHY cooking works. Every single cookbook, chef, well-intentioned friend, and grandmother will tell you HOW to cook, how a recipe is made, and how to throw a quick meal together for your family. All that is great; however, it was only when I came across this article and then this article that I realized that the hows don’t turn me on; it’s the whys that make me excited. I need to know why cooking works. I need to activate my left brain first, and then my creative right brain can take over, and maybe then I can walk into a kitchen and feel comfortable in that room. Why do we use certain ingredients? Why do we cut the heat in the oven for the last few minutes or vice versa? Why do we salt the water if we are just going to toss the water? Why are German knives considered the best? Why will burnt garlic ruin a dish? Why should we pinch apart basil, but chopping parsley is ok? Why, Why, Why?
I figured out that I had to take my nursing student brain to cooking school. Now, I am interested. Now, cooking is attractive to me. Now, I am actually learning something.
Even before I found the articles listed above, Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat was the first cookbook I ordered. I also watched her Netflix show for added oomph.
The book is broken down into the four elements of cooking - salt, fat, acid, and heat, but the magic of this book is Samin goes into the science of it. Take the section on salt, for example. How salt works, the flavor of salt, types of salt, salts effect on flavor with different types of food, cooking foods in salty water, measuring salt, basic salt guidelines with the different types of salt, salt with other condiments, layering salt, balancing salt, improvising with salt. It’s wild the amount of information there is on salt. And she does it again for fat, acid, and heat. I have not finished this book, but I am slowly enjoying every word, every description, and every new discovery.
After all the whys, she gets to the hows. But what is happening in this book and now more modern and hip books on cooking (to be shared here soon) I am finding is that when the writer shares the recipe, they are sharing tips and tricks and reminders of why things are working together. It’s the big picture of cooking, not just a - here put this and this and this in a bowl and stir - kind of teaching.
I read something along the lines of this, and it really resonated: