Some people are afraid to start cooking because they are afraid of failing. Most good cooks know that failure is how we learn. In fact, I’ve been cooking for most of my life. I am confident in the kitchen and things still go wrong. All the time. No one is immune to these mishaps.

It’s part of the growth process. The idea is to examine the situation and learn from it. In fact, it is possible to not only make the best of a potential disaster, but to also discover something completely unexpected.

Case in point: I am fond of chocolate chip cookies. For a while, I would mostly follow the Toll House recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. One day, I started out by following the recipe but ended up partially following another recipe on the bag. I caught it, and continued making the cookies anyway to see what would happen.

The result? The best chocolate chip cookies I ever had. I wrote down what I did and changed a few things around. Now, my cookies are uniquely different and extremely tasty. All because I didn’t panic during the error. I am making those cookies now, in tribute.

I love discovering new ingredients to work with. But is there really anything new out there? I love ethnic food stores because it makes me realize that yes, there are a lot of things out there that I’ve never heard of. For example, I found out that there is something called “pistachio paste” that is slightly sweet. I can’t wait to find some and experiment with it in my baking and candy making.

Learning about something new always makes me wonder … what else have I been missing out on? My quest to broaden my culinary horizons leads me to search the globe for ingredients that are interesting and can really allow me to get more creative in the kitchen.

It’s also a good way for me to take a place home with me when I travel. Combing through the wine stores to find a Santorini white helps me remember the time I spent there in May. Making Schnitzel and Bratkartoffeln reminds me of Germany and the two years I lived there. The scent of baklava syrup bubbling on the stove, waiting to be poured over the pastry takes me back to my childhood and of the time I spent in Greece eating entirely too much of it.

In some cases, the dishes don’t include remarkable or even new ingredients. Sometimes they do. I’ve purchased spices such as saffron in my travels, combed ethnic stores for spices like Mahleb so I could make some traditional Greek dishes, and will go out of my way to purchase Greek oregano dried and still on the branches.

It is in these ways that I look to other cultures to find new ingredients, and to use ethnic cuisines to reinvent ingredients I know well.