What do I want to be able to do?

As I continue to learn about cooking I have to ask myself what it is I want to be able to do that I can't already do.  After some consideration I want to be able to go to the grocery store, look around for whatever looks good, take it home and make something delicious from it.

There is a chasm of ignorance between where I am right now and being able to do that.

Some of the highlights of that chasm are as follows:

1. I don't know what produce is in season when.  (Winter here in Michigan means there isn't much local produce at all.)
   
2. I don't know how to identify the things that look good
   
3. I rarely know what to do with an ingredient until I have a cookbook in my hand.  Not very useful when I'm at the grocery store.
   
4. When I do find something that looks good and I get it home, I'm often without a requisite ingredient I need for the recipe.
   

Let's start with what's in season in the way of produce.  This is actually two questions.  The first is what is grown locally and available, and the other is what is available market-wide.

The first question is easy.  Virtually nothing is available from local growers.  The wind chill outside today is -25 and the snow is 12 inches deep.  Produce is imported at this time of year.  I could use long storing root vegatables for every meal, but that's not living or eating well no matter what the locavores say.  So here is what you can find in the grocery store that will be worth eating.

Vegetables

• Brussel Sprouts
  
• Cabbage
  
• Carrots
  
• Celery
  
• Onions
  
• Leeks
  
• Potatoes
  
• Pumpkins
  
• Peppers
• Radishes
  
• Greens (Spinach, Arugula, Lettuce, Kale, Swiss Chard, Collards) 
  
• Turnips
  
• Winter Squash
  
• Sweet Potatoes

Fruit

• Bananas
  
• Pears
  
• Grapes
• Blood oranges
  
• Persimmons
  
• Clementines
  
• Pomegranates
• Pummelos
  
• Limes
• Grapefruit
• Kiwi
  
• Satsuma oranges
  
• Kumquats
  
• Passion fruit
  
• Tangerines
  

So, I'll take a look at these and see what looks good, which gets us to question #2.

For that, I recommend How To Pick A Peach.  It's a good guide to picking decent produce.  The one rule of thumb I use for fruit is "If it has no smell, it will have no taste."  It has served me very well.

I am going to punt on Question #3 for now.  I am just going to assume that there is a way for me to prepare it once I get home.  This leaves a hole in my shopping, but hopefully a small one.

Lastly, the question of having the ingredients at home that I need.  This has gotten better over times as I have increased the number of things in my pantry and learned what some the standard ingredients to have on hand are and what substitutions I can make.  Here are some observations.

1. Pick one regional cuisine at a time.  Each one will have it's own set of staples.  I you want to be able to do Mexican, Indian, French, Japanese and Italian, you will need a LOT of ingredients on hand.  If you just pick one, it's pretty easy to have a sufficient set of ingredients.  In some future post I will put together a list of those ingredients.
   
2. There are some standard things you should always have on hand.  --- Salt, pepper, canola oil, olive oil, chicken stock, heavy cream, butter, onion, sugar, flour, garlic, garlic, garlic, lemon, rice.
3. It's good to know what herbs and flavors you can substitute for.  I've gotten better at adjusting for taste and experimenting when I'm missing an ingredient.  With practice you can learn to distill a recipe down to it's most basic components and procedures.  Once you have that down, improvising on that because much easier.
4. Be open minded about what you are making.  If you don't have the ingredients for one dish, make another.  There are countless different dishes that can be made with any ingredient.