Hi, I'm Sarah.
A true Clueless Cook.
Until I was 35, I had shown a spectacular talent in the kitchen: creating memorable disasters.
Then I started wondering whether I was really the problem.
I am a technical writer: I write instructions and manuals for complex software. My job is to take difficult information, organize it, and explain it in the way that best fits the person in front of me.
That is when I understood something: nobody is a Clueless Cook, the food-blog lobby just wants us to believe that!
Recipes are often written by people who cook brilliantly and take for granted what is not obvious at all for someone else.
“Cook until it’s ready” only works if you already know what “ready” means. And the classic “salt to taste” is very poetic, but if you have no idea what “to taste” means, it is really just an elegant way of saying: figure it out.
That is how Clueless Cooks was born: recipes written with the person on the other side in mind, with clear steps, real quantities, nothing treated as obvious, and all the warnings I wish I had received before creating some of my disaster masterpieces.
Special thanks to ChatGPT, which arrived just in time to help me through many kitchen crisis moments.
The philosophy behind Clueless Cooks
I truly got closer to cooking when I stopped eating meat.
For years, I think my body was trying to tell me that I was not comfortable eating someone instead of something.
I am very proud of that choice, and I believe it is hard today to ignore the impact our way of eating has on animals and on the planet.
The system has taught us to dissociate from others’ suffering and to ignore the direct role our actions play in causing it. And yet, in the end, each of us is responsible for our own choices. It is up to us to take responsibility. Three times a day, we have the chance to make a political and human choice. For me, critical thinking is freedom.
You will not find meat recipes here, though you may still find a few recipes with cheese and dairy. Plant-based cooking is a path: some recipes belong to an earlier phase of mine, and I have chosen to keep them.
The newer ones try to do one simple thing: take deeply satisfying dishes and bring them into a plant-based version.
For me, eating something delicious knowing that no one suffered for those five minutes of pleasure tastes like being at peace with nature.