I always enjoyed trying to throw a meal together without a recipe. I would just throw in a bunch of ingredients that I thought would taste good together. It usually worked out well.

There was one dish that I used to make where I would cut up smoked sausage and throw it in a pan with bits of bread. As the sausage cooked it would fry the bread in sausage grease. It was delicious.

Once, out of spite, I whipped up a batch of brownies from scratch without following a recipe. A very, snobby, arrogant girl didn’t think I could do it so I had to prove her wrong. The brownies came out almost perfect. I forgot to add salt but they were still pretty damn good. And she was impressed.

The only time I can remember where my practice of not following a recipe and just cobbling ingredients together failed was at a restaurant. It was some goofy, trendy, “build your own burger” place that didn’t have waiters. You ordered on a tablet and then someone brought your food to your table. I went down the list, ticking boxes of things that I like – bacon, fried egg, onions, roasted red peppers, god only knows what else – and it was the single worst burger I’ve ever eaten. The lesson I came away with is that when I go to a restaurant I’m not looking for an interactive experience. I want good food made by someone who followed a recipe.