The Food Could Always Be Better

TL;DR

Social media's endless optimization culture pressures cooks into never-ending improvement loops, but deciding what's 'good enough' is a valid and freeing choice.

Key Points

• 1.Starting any new skill yields no instant reward, and cooking is no exception. Running two hours on day one burns zero pounds; similarly, home cooking beats Applebees only after developing real skill — not on the first attempt.
• 2.The 'cooking is art, baking is science' slogan is meaningless. Both disciplines require precision and creativity equally; measuring salt in grams matters as much as measuring flour, making the dichotomy useless as advice.
• 3.'Medium rare' is not a universal steak answer — it depends on the cut. Fatty cuts like ribeye benefit from more cooking to render fat; lean cuts like filet mignon can go blue rare; skirt steak for carne asada is better at medium or medium-well.
• 4.Social media's optimization spiral turns cooking advice into an exhausting loop. A Kraft mac and cheese box can be endlessly upgraded — bronze-die-cut pasta, 24-month aged Parmigiano, from-scratch sauce — but every cook must personally decide what 'good enough' means for their goals.
• 5.Imposing your cooking standards on others is the real problem, not having standards. Streamer NorthernLion and the creator both argue that online commenters who optimize every meal hypothetically — without actually cooking — should be ignored; pan con tomate made simply by choice is not 'settling.'