Cooking Secrets For Beginners Part 1 (And A Wig Review, Too)

Hello, ladies and welcome back to still looking good 58, i am faith and welcome to my kitchen. As you guys know, this is part one of a two-part series that i'm doing on wigs and wisdom wednesday about cooking. It'S not about recipes, so i'm not going to be sharing recipes with you. I am going to be showing you the techniques and best practices for learning how to cook, and it is all based on my book that i wrote in 2013 called the real book on how to cook secrets. Mother never told you so i'm going to show you a closer picture of the book later on and, as you also know, since this is wigs and wisdom wednesday, i'm also going to be doing a wig review and the wig that i have for you today is Madeline and again i'll show you a closer picture of her later. She is from vanessa hare and she is considered a thumb part lace wig. So we'll talk about that. So, let's get this going now that we are in a period of time where people are thinking about food and doing a lot of cooking. I wanted to kind of give you guys some pointers, especially those of you who don't cook, can't cook, have not really cooked anything but are at least willing to try. So what i want you guys to do in this first episode, i'm going to be talking about what i call the pots system, it's preparation, organization, technique and success, and i call it pots and i'm going to share the first two pieces of that preparation organization with You in this particular episode and then in the next one i'll finish it up with technique and success. So the first thing that i talk about in my book in terms of getting yourself prepared, is you really want to be in a clean kitchen? Okay, there's nothing! Worse than coming into a dirty kitchen and calling yourself trying to work, so it's really important that you clear things off the counter. If you can have a really big counter here and i've got things sitting here, but these are the things that i need, because i'm actually about to make a pot roast. So you also want to make sure that the dishes are done if you're, using your stove or oven. You want it to be clean. You don't want to put extra stress on yourself by coming into an environment. That'S not clean! So that's really important and that's one of the things that i wanted to share with you guys i actually have written my notes down here so that i do not miss a trick, as i am talking to you about this. So one of the other things that i think is really important to do when you start to cook is make sure that your hands are clean. I mean honest to goodness, make sure your hands are clean um because of the fact that there's going to be three things that normally happen when you're cooking number one you're going to be touching food and then you're going to be touching other things just like when You'Re in a restaurant and somebody is prepping your sandwich and then they take your money. You don't like that unless they're having gloves on so you don't want to do that in your house either. You don't want to touch food and then touch other things. So you have to keep your hands clean. One good practice that i use is. I wear thin plastic gloves when i'm cooking, especially if i'm going to be touching food, which brings me to the second reason why your hands should be clean, is because you're going to be touching previously dead animals. Okay, i'm not previously dead. Previously live animals, hopefully they're dead, previously live animals, especially pork. Pork is a killer. If you don't keep your hands clean, you can get all kinds of things like trichinosis salmonella whatever, so you want to make sure, especially when you're handling raw food, especially raw pork, beef, chicken, even fish, it's good to wear gloves, and the third reason is that you're Going to eventually put your fingers in your mouth because you're going to be tasting the food as a good cook, you're supposed to taste your food before you give it to other people, because you don't want people to be eating, something that you've not tasted, because you Need to make sure that the ingredients that you were supposed to put in there are in there and all of that so yeah. So those are the three reasons you want to make sure your hands are clean because of the fact that you are going to be touching other things because you're going to be touching previously live animals and you're going to be eventually putting your fingers in your mouth. Okay, so got that clear, so the other thing that i wanted to talk to you about is the ambiance. For me. I'D rather not have other people in the kitchen with me. Some people like to have people like sitting around the counter and talking to them all that kind of stuff. I don't really mind that part of it, but i don't like the whole running in and out in and out stuff like, for instance, when i lived in atlanta, i had my kitchen redesigned so that there was a section on one side where i'm doing all my Cooking and a section on the other side, where my husband, if he wanted to make a sandwich all that stuff, was on the other side of the kitchen, so that meant he had the refrigerator he had access to the plates and things, and he also had access To the microwave, so all that stuff was on one side of the room so that if he ever wants to come in while i'm cooking, he can go over there. On the other side was my double oven and my stove and - and you know all of my utensils and things so that we wouldn't like be bumping into each other. So that's real important and speaking of bumping, one of the things that you also want to make sure before you start cooking is know your kitchen. Do you know where everything is in your kitchen? Do you know how many feet it is from your stove to the counter from the sink to the counter, and the reason i say this is because you are going to need to know how far you have to go to carry things in and out of the Stove in and out refrigerator or whatever, and you may think that that's a small thing but trust me if you've got hot food or whatever you want to make sure that you, you know the distance between your stove and the counter and all that kind of thing. So that you won't be bumping into stuff when you're pulling things off the up - and let's say you have a really thin galley kitchen and you're taking stuff out of the oven, you're gon na turn around and bump into something. You just kind of need to know. Your environment, and so that's really important and that's one thing that people don't always think about, but it's certainly something that i think about the next thing in terms of the environment is your counters. You may notice that i have counters that have the little sprinkly color things on them. These are quartz, i mean not quartz. These are um granite, countertops. Now, there's a difference between granite and soapstone and, of course, vinyl rather laminate, uh and quartz. These counters that are granite, i have to say that i'm not real crazy about granite and the reason i say that is because granite stains you'll see like little darkened areas where there was water like if you spill water or something if you have something on the Granite that had water when you pick up the cup you're going to see a darkened area now, eventually it goes away, but i just don't like it, but with granite. The good thing about granite is that it doesn't burn. So you can put things on a granite. Countertop and not worry about them burning, but i mean i would suggest that, instead of doing it directly on there that you use something like this. These are little um. This one's made out of silicone this one's wood, but these are good for putting hot things on your counters, even if you have granite, i would suggest that you invest in some of these little things that are made out of silicone or a wood one, so that You can put your hot things on it now. If you have quartz countertops, i would never never put anything hot on a quartz countertop. When i lived in atlanta - and i had my other house and my other kitchen - i opted for quartz countertops, because i just thought that they would be nicer better whatever, and the good thing about quartz is that it does not stain. So it doesn't stain. Like you see the stains on a granite countertop, but quartz will burn unlike granite. Quartz will burn and you'll get this like really thin white stuff. That kind of you can scrape off it's awful, it's awful and i did it before so i know so. That'S the difference between quartz and granite, and if you have laminate, of course, laminate is going to buckle eventually and it definitely burns. You can't put more than 140 degrees on laminate before it burns. So just keep that in mind. So so that's, basically it your environment is important. You need to know what you can put on your counters. What you can't um! That'S again, you have to invest in something that you can put your hot pots on and even with my stove here, i'm still getting used to this electric stove. As a lot of you know, i'm i'm really a gas stove person, but i got electric because i was scared. I might burn the house down because i'm always keeping the gas on. I just forget, so i got electric but man. I am having a hard time getting used to this electric because i mean i don't like it: it overcooks sometimes or it undercooks, i'm still getting used to it. If you guys have electric, please give me some tips, because i'm just not feeling this electric stove, but i also have to be careful with the electric stove. You know what i'm putting on it and dropping things on it and trying to get it clean. Oh that's! Another thing, if you guys have an electric stub that has that like clear, that that smooth countertop tell me what you use to clean this sucker, because what i have is really not working. So please put in the comments what you use to clean it: okay, so the next thing that i want to go into before we get to the quiz and yes, there is a quiz for this section of preparation. I'M going to quiz you on some of the things that i just mentioned, but the last thing i wanted to talk to you about in this section is the people that you're cooking, for especially if you're going to have a party or something or just a you Know a few people over for dinner. You need to know if they have allergies, it is so important to ask that some people have peanut allergies. Some people have gluten allergies. You know wheat. Some people are allergic to the things that are on salads. You know like lettuce and stuff, so i don't care if your lettuce says it's pre-washed trust me. You need to wash your lettuce, i don't care. If it's a pre-wash, you should wash it because there you can smell the chemicals on the lettuce. If you really have done that before, when you open up that lettuce, you can smell, there's chemicals on it, so you need to wash it and get you one of those salad spinners to get the water off of it. If you want to - or you can just use paper towels to dry the lettuce off, but it's important for you to know if they have allergies, because you don't want people coming to your house and you cook something that makes them sick. I make carrot cake a lot and a lot of people, don't like walnuts or they can't eat walnuts, and so i always ask them you know: can you eat walnuts? Because if you can't, then i'm not gon na put them in the carrot, cake, um and then there are certain things that have peanuts in them that you don't know until you read the ingredients. So i would make sure that everything that i'm cooking, that i've checked that out, so that i can make sure that i'm not like killing my guests right. Okay. So that is the end of part, one which is preparation. And if you want to know more things about preparation, i also talk about the different types of knives and cutting boards and all kinds of information. So again, it's in my book, the real book on how to cook secrets. Mother never told you and that's what you're gon na find in the preparation section. So now that we are done with preparation, i am going to ask you a quiz question. You'Re going to see the questions up, i'm going to put the questions up in front of me so that you can see what they are. I mean the answer to the question, so the question is before you start to cook. What is the most important thing to do so now, i'm going to show you the answers, so is it a turn on the tv in the next room? So you can hear the soaps while you cook, is it b comb, your hair? You want to look good while you're cooking. Is it c, wash the dishes clear the counters and put everything away or d put on a sexy outfit, so your boyfriend won't care. If you can't cook, you guys tell me which one is the correct answer. Then we are going to go on to the second section of this part, which is organization now in organization, i'm going to be talking to you about measurements and cookware bakeware and the tools that i use. So the first thing i'm going to do is get my measurements, so i can kind of show you, okay, this is a cup, but it's a liquid cup. It has measurements on it. One cup three quarters one half and one. Fourth, it also has the ounces. This is for liquid. This is a dry cup okay. So if you're going to be measuring something, don't put the liquid in here and don't put the dry ingredients in here when i say dry ingredients, i'm talking about flour, sugar, salt, baking, powder, baking, soda, don't put those in here! Put them in here. This is a cup, this is a half a cup, and this is a third cup and you'll even find some that give you a quarter cup so yeah. You definitely want to make sure that you know the difference between your dry and wet because they measure differently. Just so you know, and of course measuring spoons are important. Now you may see people just throw stuff in just you know, throw a pinch of this or a pinch of that in you can do that. But if you're, not that good of a cook - and you haven't made this particular recipe ever then i wouldn't suggest that you start doing that. I think that you should use measuring spoons. They come in a tablespoon, a teaspoon half a teaspoon quarter, teaspoon eighth of a teaspoon. You should use measuring spoons until you get comfortable with the recipe that you can start just throwing stuff in, because there are some things that i do do that i just throw stuff in because i know so yeah. So the other thing that i wanted to talk to you guys about is cookware the first one i'm going to share with you is the cast iron skillet. This is the one that your grandma probably used. It'S made by lodge and you've probably seen a lot of these at the cracker barrel, but they used to sell these in the stores all the time it's heavier than aluminum and it's heavier than stainless steel. It cooks evenly and it's really great for frying chicken or for baking like cornbread. Most people prefer for those two things. This is stainless steel. Now some people like stainless steel because it's lighter but stainless steel does not cook as evenly and that's why some people? Don'T really like it besides that it's not non-stick, you can probably get something nonstick, but this kind is not nonstick and then there's um aluminum, and this is an anodized aluminum, which means it cooks more. It conducts heat better. So that means it spreads the heat out. Better - and so i prefer these because they're lighter and they cook just as well as far as a cast iron to me, but it's nonstick, so things aren't going to stick in here. As far as frying pans go, there's going to be several sizes that you can get 10 and 12 are pretty typical and you can get some even larger than that they usually have handles on there like this. Some of them have plastic handles now. What i would warn you against is if your handle is made out of the same material as this part, then you're going to want to make sure you wear gloves, because if you grab this, it's going to burn you. Okay, usually, if it's made out of the same material as this, then it's going to burn you um, like a cast iron. It'S all one piece you need to use gloves for that. This one is made out of the same material. This handle is made of the same material, so you're going to definitely burn yourself, so you want to make sure that your handle isn't made out of the same materials this part or just make sure that you always have um gloves now. These are two different size. Sauce pans, this one is, i think this is one goes up to four ounces yeah. This one goes out to four ounces, and this is good for sauces, and you know things like that. This one, i think, goes up to either six or eight and this one and the measurements are on the inside. That'S what i'm looking at the measurements are on the inside, and this one is good for like vegetables and things like that and another thing. I want to make sure that you understand besides the types and pots and pans that you have is your stove. Now your stove has different btus on it, which is an indicator of how much they heat up. Some of them have lower btus for simmering, and some of them have higher btus for regular cooking. So you want to understand what your stove does and doesn't do. So i would open up that directions book that you got with your stove, so that you can better understand what your what btus you're using, so that when you're cooking you're not putting things in the wrong place, we're also going to talk about cookware. This is a pyrex cooking pan, and this is aluminum for cakes. I like aluminum, but with aluminum. You have to either put parchment paper in here or you have to use baker's jewelry, which i use. It'S a combination of flour and oil, or you can just oil. It with your hands and put some powder in it, like your mama used to do the pyrex. I like the pyrex for cold pies like things that go in the refrigerator that i don't have to bake, i'd rather bake in a aluminum pie. Pan, it's just my preference, but now these are the different types and with pyrex you don't want to put the hot pyrex on anything like your counter, because it's going to burn it. So the other thing that i wanted to talk to you guys about some of you, probably like wok cooking and i have a wok, but i'm not going to bring it out, but i'm going to tell you something about wok cooking. If you cook with a wok, you have to be very careful about the kind of oil that you use. You may not have known that, but it's important for you to understand that when you're cooking with a wok, you can't use certain types of oils in your wok and i'm going to share with you what you can and cannot use in the wok. So what you're? Trying to do when you're cooking with a wok is you've got to have your heat up really really high. But again you can only use certain types of oil and you really need to know what their smoke points are, which is their high tolerance for heat. So the smoke point is going to help you determine what kind of oil that you should use so for a walk, there's two things that you should never put in a walk and that's butter and lard. Those are the two things you should not put in the wall because it's going to burn it up really fast. The best oil that you should use for a wok is peanut corn or soybean oil because they have high smoke points. Okay, so that's what you want to keep in mind: refined oil is better than unrefined oil too. So if you want to keep that in mind so yeah, so that's the deal with the walk. So now i'm going to go back to my notes so that i can make sure i don't miss telling you guys anything uh yeah, so that was pretty much it for this section. So i told you about the pots and pans. I told you about your cleaning surface. I don't think i told you about the tools yet um. One of my favorite things to use is called a standing mixer and i'm going to show you a picture of the standing mixer if you're a good cook you're going to have one of these, because the standing mixer is good for mixing all kinds of things. They are not cheap, but you can find them on sale in certain places. They'Re usually about 350 - something like that, but i got my last one for 150 because it was on sale after christmas at t.j.maxx or marshalls or one of those places. So you can always look during the after christmas sales for one, because you really want to invest in a kitchen made standing mixer. Also, the other thing that you want to make sure that you get is a food processor. Food processors are really really important because you can do a lot of things with them. You can chop up things and a lot of recipes that come out today, usually utilize or tell you to utilize, a food processor. So that's another important tool that you should get a hand. Mixer is fine too, rather than a standing, but the standing mixer allows you to walk away and do other things where the hand mixer does not um. One tip that i can give you is that for some of these tools that you need that aren't like really cheap if you're about to get married - and you have one of those registries put those on your registry, i would put the standing mixer and the food Processor and all those things that even a crock pot on my list so that you can get those things as a gift and then you have to worry about paying for yourself. So, okay! So now we are ready for the next quiz. The second quiz, which is the organization quiz and i'm going to ask you a question about the organization um section of this. So my first question is what kind of oil should not be used in a wok? So you'll see the answers at the top? A is crisco b is better c. Is olive oil d is peanut oil so which one? Should you not use? I'M sure you guys are gon na get that. So that's what i wanted to share with you guys in part one uh again anything that i did not talk about in detail. You can go to my cookbook, which is the real book on how to cook secrets. Mother never told you it's on amazon, it's at walmart, it's at barnes, noble, um online, so online you can find it just about anywhere. The last name is night. So that's what you want to look for, okay and in my cookbook are the things that i just mentioned to you and way way. More. Okay, lots lots more! So in the next section that we're going to talk about in part two we're going to talk about technique and success, so i'm going to be teaching you um what you should be doing as far as like your main dishes: how to store meat, cooking methods, side, Dishes all those kinds of things, so we will talk about that next week. So, let's move on to the wig review. Well, just as i promised you here is the wig review. This is madeline and i have madeline in the color sp430. She is called a thumb. Part lace, because it's only a thumb part, so i'm going to show you. This is what it looks like it's just a little bit of lace on the side where the part is which is on the left. It has a comb on this side of the part and then one way over here then it has the comb in the back and the adjustable straps. So this is her really curly. I haven't done anything with the curls or anything i just wanted to show you guys what she looked like and i don't know if she's a comfy cap yet because i haven't put her on so i'm gon na do that right now, as you can see, i Still have my apron on, i haven't done anything to my face so here she is and there's that thumb part. So there's like a really teeny piece of baby hair right there and in the picture she didn't actually use the baby hair. She didn't use the baby hair, but since it's sitting here i might use it once i actually put my face on, but i wanted you guys to see it, and i wanted you guys to see this little thumb part. So you just put your lace right there. So what i'm going to do with her is i'm going to start pulling these apart, so i could see how much hair is actually falling in my face and with this kind of wig you can start doing this. You know not too much not too much, but just enough to get it where you want it to be um. It'S interesting to me that this really long piece is here, but then some of these here a little shorter. So it's just it's kind of odd. To me that this piece would be hanging here like this, and the rest of these would be shorter up here. I don't know what the point of that was, but i'm just going to start pulling it out so that i can kind of get it to where i want it. But i guess technically i could just pull that back there. If i wanted to do that, but it is in the front, which seems a little odd to me so with the wig like this you're going to have to decide how much of this hair you want to keep and how much, how much of it you want To cut off so let me just show you what she looks like on the side and in the back here. She is in the side, she's really really full, and here she is in the back yeah just a little below my neck, but uh yeah she's. Given lots of curls, that's for sure, and because she doesn't have lace because she doesn't have lace, you don't really have anything to do except take your little brush that you use for your lace, get yourself some powder and powder it, which is what i'm going to Do real, quick right here, i'm just going to put a little powder here in this section, yep just a little bit right there yep and that's pretty much all you need to do and, like i said you can kind of cut it. The way you want and utilize this little piece of baby hair or not so that is that's madeline again she's a thumb, part naturalist, realistic, look style, she's from vanessa hair and, as i told you guys before, usually she does not look that great on the stock Card but she looks good on this one, so they're doing a little bit better when it comes to the stock card, so yeah, so i'm going to um go ahead and put a face on and i'll come back with madeleine again. So what do you guys think? I, like the curls, and i like the color - it's just a it's a 4 and 30., and i like that. You can kind of separate these a little bit in the front. You know that's kind of cool to be able to do that. Um - and it also has baby hair, but i didn't use it, but i'm gon na pull it out because it's under here here it is there, it is, and i've got a little bit of this edge factor, style factor or whatever you call it edge. Booster. I'M just going to put a tab at the top and just try to see which direction i want to brush these baby hairs. I want them to go that way. I want to go this way. They don't seem to want to go either way. You don't know. I think they're kind of trying to go this way so we'll go that way, yeah not much to them, but there you go. I don't think you really need them with this wig, though, so what you guys think i think she's cute real curly and soft. Now she, as you saw earlier, is real long in the front real long in the front, but i chopped it a little bit so that now there's just these right here, just these little curls in the front and you can either keep those there. You can move them out the way and again the more you mess with her the bigger she's going to get so here she is again on the side here she is getting the back. Yeah she's uh she's a lot of hair, but i think she's really cute and, like i told you guys before, usually the um vanessa hair. Wigs, don't always look good on the care card, but i thought she looked really good on this care card and she comes in a lot of other colors. She comes in the normal colors, like i told you guys, 11b 299j, and i would suggest that you go onto their website and look at the color chart like i always tell you guys, so you can see all the other colors the way it comes in so Yeah again, don't sleep on vanessa, because i really think this turned out to be a really nice one. Thank you guys for coming to my wigs and wisdom wednesday and i'm going to be doing another one excuse the ice machine on the refrigerator. I'M going to be doing another one next, one next, not next wednesday, but the wednesday after that, and that will be part 2 of the cookbook so that you guys can learn a few other techniques and tricks. If you're learning how to cook and i'll appreciate you supporting me, if you go to those websites that i put down at the bottom, so you can pick up the cookbook and learn a few other things that i didn't get a chance to tell you in this Video and probably won't have time to tell you in the second one. So thank you again so much for watching. If you have not subscribed to my channel, please hit the subscription button and the notification bell so that you don't miss any of my uploads and as always say. Ladies, if you're going to show love to anyone today, please show it to the creator. I'M still looking good and of course, are you see you next time you