That’s pretty much it. What would you say is your level of cooking ability?
Pro cook. I gots the skills to pay the bills.
Some of them, anyway. Cooking in a high-end place doesn’t pay that well.
The only recipes I can follow must include the phrase: “Pour in contents of flavor packet.”
I cook three meals a day from scratch, so I consider myself “capable”. I wouldn’t say I’m a particularly adventurous cook, but I have one real skill - a great sense of timing. I can cook a meal and get everything ready at the same time.
I’m quite capable, although of course there are the occasional Fails. Given a recipe, no problem (at least if the recipe is well-written and the dish is good, of course.) then I’m “confident”.
Without a recipe…I’m still pretty good. Poverty helps. I was too skeered to move outside of a recipe 10 years ago, but when all you’ve got in the pantry is a can of tomatoes, a bag of beans and a spice drawer, you learn to improvise. Toss in an onion, and I can make you Southern (USA) beans, Italian beans, Mexican beans, Indian beans or Spanish beans. Throw me some brown sugar, soy sauce, a ham hock and some citrus, and the world cuisine comes alive, as interpreted through beans.
My kids like to tease me because most of my meals don’t have names (as in, “what’s for dinner?” “I don’t know what to call it, just eat it.”) but they still taste pretty good!
I am a good cook, married to a great one. My only professional cooking experience is manning the grill and the taco assembly stations during a stint working fast food back in high school.
I chose “excellent home cook” cuz I’m not a professional. That said, I do a lot of stuff where there’s some crossover with professional cooks. I make my own glace, I’ve dry-cured sausages, I’ve dabbled in cheesemaking. However, I am emphatically not a professional in that I know nothing about prepping/cooking hundreds of identical servings, figuring out food costs, working a line, etc. I strive to be Julia Child, not a professional working chef.
There’s an interesting article that Mark Bittman wrote for a collection of essays called Man with a Pan. In it, he writes about the stages of learning to be a good home cook:
I thought this was an interesting breakdown, and it’s certainly the way I learned how to cook. I have hundreds of cookbooks, and consult the web for cooking advice all the time, but day-to-day cooking most often doesn’t involve a recipe, it more involves an idea that I may just do without a recipe, or go consult several recipes and pick and choose how I want to make it. Last night’s dinner, for example - I was in the mood for spicy Thai peanut noodles. Also wanted some veggies in there for health. Spent a few minutes looking at peanut sauce recipes on the web and made a note of “oyster sauce, soy sauce, peanut butter, tahini, chicken stock, fish sauce.” Went and dug through the fridge and found some ramp leaves and beet greens/stalks that needed to be used, pulled those out. Also found a block of tofu, which I sliced and weighted down on a cutting board. Meanwhile, sauteed up the ramps and beet greens/stalks. Dug through the cupboards for the sauce ingredients, didn’t have some of them, wanted some other ones, ended up with peanut butter, tahini, soy sauce, chile paste, fish sauce, sesame oil. Didn’t want chicken stock so decided to thin it with pasta water. Sauteed the tofu, cooked some pasta, mixed it all together, threw some cilantro leaves on top. Turned out great!
I still try new recipes, though, especially when it’s a dish I haven’t made before, or I’m in the mood to just follow directions.
I’ve also recently discovered that I’ve turned into my Grandma, as when I do perfect a recipe and decide to write it down, more often than not it’s a list of ingredients with no proportions or instructions. Boy, that used to drive me nuts when I was learning how to cook and I’d ask for family recipes. But now I see that it’s really all I need to remember, the proportions and technique just come naturally.
Somewhere between capable and confident, I think. I’ll get a lot more confident in the next few years and really look forward to the wedding registry, when I plan to take over the world with my new cookware and kitchen stuff.
I picked fairly capable, but really I am somewhere between fairly capable and capable. I have a handful of dishes I can cook that are to die for, a few more that are just meh, and I can experiment…a little.
My SO is much, much better.
Despite my username, I’m not now, nor have I ever been a professional chef. I’m an excellent and educated home cook, with some formal training under my belt, but the only line cooking I ever did was as a short order grill cook in college. I seldom need recipes other than as general guides, and can make most things from scratch.
I consider myself to be a mostly capable cook. I have a general understanding of ingredients and flavors, and I can make a good variety of dishes through following recipes (then quickly making vast alterations to them), experimentation and dumb luck. Granted, problem is most of the time I’m making so much of it up as I go that much of what I make can never be exactly duplicated but it always tastes good. I really enjoy cooking in any case.
I’m somewhere between capable and confident, but went with “capable” since I don’t actually enjoy cooking particularly. I have, however, made up recipes that other people have asked me for, so obviously I’m pretty good.
Had to go with fairly capable. I’ve never knocked out a Thanksgiving dinner but I can cook any part of it without problem. I gravitate toward all-in-one dishes so I don’t have to make side dishes.
I am a capable home cook. I have worked as a cook in a bar/tavern place so I can handle that level of professional cooking (burgers, soups, salads, wings, sandwiches, etc), but in no way would I consider myself a Pro.
Confident: I am an excellent home cook.
My girlfriend is my equal, skill-wise, in the kitchen. Which leads to some magnificent family holiday meals.
Do you guys cook Chinese and Indian every night? 'Cause if so, I’m moving in. 
I picked capable, but was leaning towards confident.
I’m confident, but I am cheap. I’m not willing to try making something I’m not absolutely sure I’ll like or for which I may screw up the execution. The few times I ended up having to toss something because I didn’t like it or screwed it up, it broke my heart to throw food away.
I do this too, and it drives my engineer husband up the wall.
Me: “Heat some oil in a pan and cook onions and garlic.”
Engineer Husband: “How much oil? How hot does the pan have to be? How big should I cut the onions? How long should I cook them?”
Me: “
Enough? Medium? small? Until they’re done?”
EH: “What do I do with them when they’re done? Where should I put them? How much salt should I add?”
Me: “Nevermind, just let me do it.”
Horrendous. The wife is excellent, so I don’t bother. Why send in your 3rd String QB when you’ve got a Pro Bowler on the roster?
I’m good enough I can improvise on a theme and generally ignore the recipe when it comes to things like spices and the precise mix of vegetables and such. Generally, once I have the basics like how long I need to cook things, I can do my own thing and it will be edible, and will quite likely be rather tasty.
(My secret is that I’ll eat damn near anything and enjoy it; hitting the target is easy when it’s big enough you could do it shooting blindfolded.)