This is how I really cook.

I love beautiful, perfect pictures of food, but they rarely seem related to what’s actually going on in my kitchen. I love meticulous, step-by-step recipes too, but when I’m cooking for my family and friends I’m rarely following one to the letter. The way I really cook—and the way I talk about cooking with my friends who love to cook as much as I do—is somewhere in between the two.

It’s about an ingredient or technique that’s inspiring or frustrating me. What I cooked last night, described in two sentences. A twist on a well known recipe. The fact that caramelized onions are good in everything. How I love the idea of making pasta, but can’t be bothered and frankly am a little scared of it. Sometimes it’s about what we eat when there’s 20 minutes to make dinner and no one had time to go shopping.

This way of thinking about food and cooking is what (Not)Recipes is all about. It’s a safe space to celebrate real cooking over personal branding and all-knowing experts. It’s where I want to go to talk about what I’m cooking and figure out what to cook next.

Michael Hoffman about (Not)Recipes by Food52