Guest Post: What NYC Can Teach You About Cooking!

The city that never sleeps abounds with flavors and foods from around the world. Walk down Restaurant Row , have a late lunch in Hell?s Kitchen or duck into any of New York?s numerous diners , and you?ll discover new tastes to delight your palate. The trick then becomes taking these incredible sensory experiences and integrating them into your own kitchen. Cooking for yourself will not only be easier on your wallet, but will also be easier on your waistline. Studies show that we eat less and choose lower fat options when we cook our own fare. If all of this seems overwhelming, fear not, as you do not need to have attended one of the many cooking schools found online to recreate many of these recipes. In fact, you can spice up your dinner table and take your family on culinary adventures with just a few simple steps.

Step out on the street in New York, or any major city, and you?ll find a plethora of restaurants. Your favorite Italian pasta joints and Japanese sushi houses are always reliable, but you?ll find a stunning array of other options if you step off the main drag. Have you ever eaten doro wat scooped on pieces of injera? If these terms leave you confused, you?ve probably never been to an Ethiopian restaurant . Have you tried beef galbi in little Korea? Or have you tried the burning spiciness of the Nigerian kabobs known as suya? Other restaurants offer true Mexican cuisine, regional Italian and country French.

These culinary adventures will give you a taste for new cuisine and introduce you to some of the staple ingredients and how they should be prepared. Learning to love these exciting foods is the first step to discovering new depths to your cooking talents. For an easy way to discover the best restaurants for everything from soul food to paella, checkout Zagat.com , which offers restaurant guides, reviews and helpful information to find the perfect restaurant for a night of culinary adventure.

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Many of the ingredients that comprise these exotic and intriguing dishes can be found in the local grocer. Chicken breast, yellow rice and ginger root are fairly common. Others, such as saffron and whole vanilla beans, might seem exotic but are often found on the shelf right alongside other spices.

When searching for more exotic ingredients, it is best to start with those that pertain to the cuisines you most enjoy. If you love Indian food, consider investing in several different types of curry. Similarly, lingonberries, cardamom and lamb are staples of Scandinavian cuisine. For help in finding the best places to buy specialized ingredients, yelp.com  offers city guides to help you find the best places to get unusual ingredients that will make your dinners pop.

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When you live in the city, your kitchen might be the size of a closet. However this doesn?t mean that you can?t cook, it just means you have to consolidate your supplies. Don?t waste money on useless gadgets, and look for pieces that are versatile. A few key pieces go a long way to making it possible to cook a wide range of options. Cooks Russ Parsons and Amy Scattergood, discuss their kitchen essentials in an excellent article for the Los Angeles Times , which also discusses what pieces you can skip. Some of their best recommendations include a deep-dish roasting pan, counter top scale and a mircoplane. Each serves multiple functions, and the counter-top scale will make cooking with recipes that call for metric measurements a snap.

In addition to the items found on Parsons and Cook?s list, there are a few other pieces that are good to have when the only outdoor space is the fire escape and your microwave is pint-sized. For instance, a counter top grill will provide you with most of the benefits of its full-size counterpart and doesn?t require trips to the roof with charcoal briquettes. Likewise, an electric skillet not only makes cooking pancakes a breeze, but it also serves for frying, searing and general sautéing. Another can?t be beat item is a slow cooker, often called a crock-pot. It works for soups, stews, roasts, chili and plenty of other foods, and it gives you the benefit of starting dinner in the morning, before the day gets hectic.

Recipe Finders

There are a number of excellent recipe resources available online. For example, the Food Network provides a lot of recipes with easy-to-follow instructions for the aspiring cook. Other sites focus on specific types of cuisine. Simply Google ?Ethiopian food? or ?Scandinavian recipes,? and you?ll find a plethora of resources.

Traditional cookbooks are a great place to find truly traditional, absolutely delicious recipes. Julia Child?s ?Mastering the Art of French Cooking ? is often cited as the go-to classic, but nearly every cuisine has its version of this tome, from Deborah Madison?s ?Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone? to Penelope Casas? ?The Foods and Wines of Spain.? Simply browse the shelves of your local bookseller or cruise the foodie sites online to find the best cookbooks for any type of cuisine that might interest you.

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The city offers you the opportunity to learn about a wide variety of different cuisines. Eating out is the first step. It introduces your palate to new tastes and teaches you how ingredients should be prepared. If you discover a dish you truly enjoy, ask the server to find out if there is a particular spice or other ingredient that truly distinguishes it. Chances are, they?d be happy to provide you with more details. Once you?ve discovered a food you enjoy, don?t be afraid to try cooking it yourself. Even pizza can become extraordinary when you make your own dough and sauce and sprinkle it with chorizo sausage or artichokes. Ultimately you find that you?ve learned an entirely new cooking repertoire in no time, thanks to the restaurants that are right outside your door.