What was your biggest failure when learning to cook?

To become a chef, you have to experience several failures, oh, not a few times, but dozens of times. I remember the first time I learned to cook, when I was in the third grade of elementary school. That was probably the most unsuccessful time.

I remember that time, my mother went to work, and I came home early from school. I thought that if I cooked the food first, I could eat it directly when my mother came back.

What to do? In fact, I have never cooked before, nor have I learned anything about it, but that day I had a sudden impulse and wanted to make a meal for my mother. It was the 1990s, and there was no refrigerator at home, so there were no dishes at home. There were only raw eggs in the vegetable cabinet and rice in the rice vat.

Because I have never cooked before, everything depends on imagination. I thought to myself, this shouldn't be difficult: just put the rice in, put the water in, and cook it in a pot. As for eggs, you can make my favorite steamed eggs like tofu. Just break the eggs into a bowl, add some salt, and simmer over water.

So I started to do it. There were no kitchen appliances at that time, they were all made by fire. So the biggest challenge for me was how to light a raging fire with matches. It took a lot of effort and I choked on the smoke and coughed to light the fire. Cooking rice is easy but difficult to do. The biggest problem is how much rice and how much water is needed. I didn’t understand anything at that time, so I just let it go. The steamed eggs are made just as you imagined - beat the eggs into a bowl, add some salt and simmer over water.

After an hour, I think it’s done. But when I opened the lid of the pot, I was dumbfounded. There was not enough water in the rice, and only the yellowed rice was stuck to the bottom of the pot one by one, giving off a burnt smell. The steamed egg was also a small, dry lump at the bottom of the bowl.

It just so happened that my mother came back at this time. When she saw this, it was neither a spanking nor a scolding. After all, my original intention was good. Later, my mother told me how much rice should be put in and how much water should be put in. When steaming eggs, you also need to put water into the eggs and use chopsticks to make bubbles, so that the steamed eggs will be delicious.

This was the first time I learned to cook, and it was indeed the most unsuccessful time. After all, no one taught me, so I relied on my own imagination.