— Li Xu

So, uh, this idea of creating your own style, in this case, flavor identity to use Lee's words. I think is a little more advanced technique, okay, or an advanced outcome of your cooking, which means that step number one or phase number one, for any cook should be to get into the kitchen, and to cook, and to cook some more, so that, um, uh, you start to understand. These different components of flavor development. And part of it comes from the cooking methods that you use. For example, if you use a dry heat cooking method that imparts browning or you know, caramelization, that's going to be one layer of flavor development. And then you can reach for things like citrus fruit or herbs or spices or um, alliums, uh, to bring in these different layers of flavoring and aroma. Uh, and those things in combination with whatever your main ingredients are, create a certain outcome or certain output in style. Okay? So your own flavor, identity, or style of cooking is going to be a combination of culture and biology, I would say. So the culture is your experience of of food, generally speaking, so it's travel, it's where you grew up. It's whose food you're eating as a child, it's who you emulate as an adult. It's what sort of foods interest you in terms of maybe regional cuisines, combined with your personality, and just your palate preferences. And so somewhere in the intersection of all that complexity is going to emerge, your flavor identity, right, or your style of cooking. And so as you, Get down this path. Um, of gaining experience. And, uh, confidence around using herbs and spices and all these other ingredients, uh, then you're going to have that, that toolkit, so to speak, right? That, that know how, uh, that is based upon your skill development and your experience. The the knowledge appear to know what to reach for. And, uh, you know, you might sit back and just simply reach toward things that are sort of inherently comfortable, familiar, or tasty to your palate. And then you can challenge that by also studying regional cuisines or studying the, maybe the, the, the style of cooking of a, of a particular person. It could be your mother, it could be a favorite chef that you see in the media. And start to bring in some of the characteristics of that person. Okay? Um, but again, I see it as uh, a longer term, a little bit more advanced or advanced phase of ones, uh, you know, cooking journey through through life. And so take your time. And, um, you know, in relation to your, your focus on spices and herbs, I would say definitely. Come to understand herbs and spices, okay? So herbs can be dry herbs as well as fresh herbs, and spices are going to be, you know, spices of all sorts, uh, that are then related to different regional cuisines around the world. And, um, you know, if you look at, at the repertoire of any cuisine, it will rely upon a finite, I mean, basically, you know, a finite set of, um, cooking methods and techniques, and then also ingredients. But all of that is put together in different ratios to create all these different flavored combinations, these different outputs or outcomes. And so as you start to understand better, uh, like when to add herbs, whether to use whole herbs or ground herbs, you know, how long to bloom them in oil or, you know, subject them to heat at the initial step versus later on. You'll come to better understand how you want to use, right? Those spices. Um, So, uh, practice and be patient. And enjoy the journey.