#57- 16 Words for Cooking, Baking and Being in the Kitchen

Welcome to episode #57 of the Real Life English with Gabby Podcast! In this fun and practical episode, you'll learn 16 commonly used phrasal verbs, slang words, and idioms you’ll hear in real American conversations about cooking and baking.

You’ll learn expressions like:
 👉 whip up
👉 chop up
👉 pop in the oven
👉 burn to a crisp
👉 cooking up a storm
…and more!

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🎧 Want to remember all the words from this episode? Download the FREE Study Guide that contains:

• All vocabulary from the episode
• Definitions + examples
• Full transcript
• Practice activities

👉 Download it >> HERE << .

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] On today's episode of The Real Life English with Gabby podcast, I'll be teaching you 16 phrasal verbs, slang words, and idioms for cooking and baking. You'll be learning vocabulary like whip up, whisk together, pop in the oven, burn to a crisp, and more. Let's get to it.
Hey there. Welcome to The Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations.
Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to the podcast to all of the regular listeners, and welcome for the first time to all of the newbies.
 [00:01:00] This is episode number 57, and it's all about cooking and baking and being in the kitchen. Food is a very popular topic in the world of English. As a second language, you'll find the topic of food in every single course, study guide, textbook. It's one of the most foundational things that you can learn in any language.
 Episode number one of this podcast, the very first episode that I put out, which happens to be the most downloaded episode, is food and drinks — eating and drinking. And that episode focuses more on eating vocabulary, like pig out, for example, meaning to eat a lot of food. That episode has been downloaded over a hundred thousand times, which is really cool. But you know, since then I haven't really done any topics that are food-related.
 [00:02:00] So I figured it's a good time to get this topic going again.

Today's episode is all about actually being in the kitchen — when you are the one preparing the food. Do you like to cook? Are you a good cook? Do you prefer baking or cooking?

Before we begin, I wanna review a bit of grammar. This is a very common mistake that I hear from my students. So first off, in English, we do not say cooker.
 Okay? A cooker, like a slow cooker, pressure cooker — these are machines, appliances that you'll find in the kitchen. A lot of Americans have slow cookers and we have pressure cookers to help us cook in a more convenient way. But cookers are things. They're not people. So we don't say, “My mother is a good cooker,” for example. We say, “My mom is a good
 [00:03:00] cook,” or “My grandmother is a really great baker.” So again, we say good cook, good baker, but no cooker.

There are two terms for people who cook professionally. So let's break down the difference here. First off, a cook is anyone who prepares food. This can be at home, in a restaurant. You don't need formal training to be called a cook. So if you go to a pizzeria, if you go to a deli or a diner — a very casual eating environment, maybe a fast food restaurant — those people are usually cooks. They're just good at preparing food, oftentimes no formal training.
For example: “My uncle is a great cook. He always makes delicious meals for the whole family.”

Then we have the word
 [00:04:00] chef. A chef is a trained professional. They work in the kitchen, usually in a restaurant or an official place for dining. Chefs often attend what we call culinary school. We don't really say cooking school, we say culinary school, and a lot of times they lead a team in the kitchen. They're the boss. So again, chef is usually very formal — someone who has official skills, lots of experience, and maybe a leadership role.
For example: “The head chef at the restaurant trained in France, and he creates all the recipes for the restaurant.”

And then lastly, when it comes to baking, we have the term baker. So a baker is similar to a cook —
[00:05:00] it's a person who prepares and cooks, but specifically pastries and desserts — so bread, cookies, cakes, pies — by baking them. This can be someone who's trained or not. However, if someone has been trained to bake, we typically call them a pastry chef. We don't typically say baker.

All right, so let's go back to my earlier question. Do you like to cook? Are you a good cook? Do you prefer baking? Maybe some of you out there listening are professional chefs, professional bakers, culinary chefs.

I personally love to cook — much more than bake. Baking is more challenging for me. I'm a much better cook than baker. I pretty much cook breakfast and dinner every day for my family. Maybe we order out once per week, but we prefer home-cooked food.
 [00:06:00] So I cook all the time. It's not only healthier, but it's cheaper. You know, American food — the quality is not so good. I'm sure you've seen in the news — we have a lot of chemicals in our food, unfortunately. Some of that is changing, but we prefer to buy high-quality food and cook it ourselves.

All right, so let me tell you the 16 new vocabulary words and expressions that you'll be learning in this episode:
 A bake-off, whip up, cooking up a storm, chop up, whisk together, mix in, heat up, boil over, too many cooks in the kitchen, stir in, pop in the oven, set off the smoke alarm, burn to a crisp, cool down, runny, flop or fail.

Before we get to the story,
 [00:07:00] I just wanna remind you that there's a free study guide waiting for you that has everything you need to remember what you learn in the episode. The study guide has all the words, definitions, example sentences, the full transcript, and practice activities that are waiting for you.

Remember that the best way to truly learn English is:

1. Repetition — hearing the same thing multiple times.
   
   
2. Using it and practicing it.

To get the study guide, click the link in the episode description, and then you'll get access to the folder that has the study guides from every episode for you to access at any time.

All right, so let's get to the story. Listen as I read a story that has all of the vocabulary in real-life context. See if you can guess the meanings by hearing the words in
 [00:08:00] context, and then afterwards we’ll review all of the definitions together.

Here we go.

Maria was an amateur cook who loved watching baking shows on TV. So when she heard that there was going to be a bake-off in her town, she got excited. “I'm gonna whip up the best chocolate cake ever!” she told her friends.
 On the morning of the contest, Maria started cooking up a storm in her small kitchen. She quickly chopped up some nuts, whisked together eggs and sugar, and carefully mixed in the flour.

“This is going great,” she smiled.

But soon, things started to go wrong. When it was time to heat up the milk on the stove, she forgot to set a timer, and it ended up boiling over, making a huge mess.
 [00:09:00]

“Oh no!” Maria panicked, trying to clean it up.

Then her little brother and sister came into the kitchen.

“Can we help you?” they asked.

Maria agreed because she was a little bit overwhelmed, but soon it felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen. The kids were spilling flour everywhere.

Next, Maria stirred in the chocolate chips and popped the cake in the oven. But she was so distracted that she set the alarm wrong. Suddenly—beep, beep, beep!

She had set off the smoke alarm. Maria ran to the oven and pulled out the cake.

“Oh no, it's burnt to a crisp!”

Not giving up, Maria tried again. She whipped up a second cake and made sure to watch it carefully. But when it finally cooled down and she cut into it,
 [00:10:00] she saw that the middle was runny — not cooked enough.

“This is another flop,” she sighed.

At the bake-off, Maria still brought her best attempt. She smiled and laughed, telling the judges all about her mistakes.

“I may not be the best baker,” she said, “but I had fun and I learned a lot.”

And even though Maria didn't win, she felt proud.
 She knew that every great cook starts with a few flops, and the next time, she'd do even better.

The end.

All right, so now let's talk about the definitions and example sentences.

Firstly, I'm gonna tell you something that's not one of the official vocabulary words or expressions, but let's talk about it. So it says that Maria is an amateur cook.
 [00:11:00] The word amateur typically means that someone doesn't do something professionally.

So like an amateur photographer is someone who is good at taking photos, but it's not their job. So an amateur cook is someone who enjoys cooking as a hobby — something that they're personally interested in — but they don't do it professionally.

It could be that someone is a beginner or they're really, really experienced, but they haven't had formal training. They haven't worked in a restaurant or culinary setting.

So if you have a family member who cooks all the time and they're really good at cooking — for example, I think most of our grandmothers can probably call themselves amateur cooks. It's something that they really love to do, they're really good at. So that's an amateur cook.

Alright, so now let's get on with the rest. First up, we have a bakeoff. So there was a bakeoff in [00:12:00] town. A bakeoff is a baking competition where people compete to make the best dishes. In English, this is very common. We put off after a verb when it's a competition. For example, we have a cookoff, a bakeoff, a sing-off. These types of competitions are just people versing each other and seeing who the best one is. And so that's what this bakeoff was.

Bakeoffs are very common, especially in small towns. They'll have a pie bakeoff. Who can make the best apple pie, blueberry pie, for example. After I took baking lessons, I signed up for my local bakeoff.

Next up, we have a phrasal verb: whip up. Whip up means to quickly prepare or make something—often food. [00:13:00] This is a really interesting one. We use this all the time. So if you're hungry and you just wanna quickly prepare a kind of dish, you'll say, "Oh, I gotta go whip something up." For example: I can whip up some pancakes in 15 minutes for breakfast if you're hungry. Very, very common phrasal verb.

Next up, we have the idiom cooking up a storm. Anytime we're doing something "up a storm," it means that we're doing a lot of it. So cooking up a storm is making a lot of food, cooking very energetically, actively—you’re doing a lot of it. So you could say, "My mom is cooking up a storm in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner."

For example: Dad was cooking up a storm in the kitchen before the big family dinner.

Next up, we have chop up. Chop up is to cut something into [00:14:00] small pieces. So if you're just chopping, you're cutting, right? You're chopping a tree. You're cutting a tree. But chop up specifically is when we're doing it into small pieces. For example: She chopped up the vegetables before adding them to the soup.

Next up, we have the phrasal verb whisk together. Whisk together is to beat or mix ingredients using a whisk. A whisk is this kitchen utensil that you use when you are, for example, scrambling eggs. Or when you're mixing flour and water and oil—a lot of different wet ingredients—you use a whisk. And whisk is a noun, but it's also a verb. If you're following a recipe, it'll say, "Whisk this," for example.

So whisk together—you're mixing a [00:15:00] whole bunch of things. "He whisked together the eggs and sugar until they were light and fluffy."

Next up, we have mix in. Mix in is typically when you have a bowl and you're adding one thing to another to create a nice mix. For example: After mixing in the chocolate chips, she poured the batter into the pan. The batter is the completed wet mix that you use right before baking. So we say cake batter, cupcake batter, brownie batter. Typically, you have flour, water, different ingredients—you mix it all together right before you bake it. That's called the batter. So: After mixing in the chocolate chips, she poured the batter into the pan.

Next up, we have [00:16:00] the phrasal verb heat up. Heat up means to make something warm or hot. Heat up is typically quick, so you don't really say, "I'm gonna heat my food." We typically say, "I'm gonna heat up my food in the microwave," because we're gonna make it warm, we're gonna make it hot, and it's typically gonna be quick. For example: I'll heat up the soup before we eat.

Next up, we have boil over. So if you don't know, the word boil is when you heat water and it slowly goes from liquid to gas. So there's lots of bubbles in the water. Once the bubbles appear, we say it's boiling. Boil over is when liquid that's being heated in a pot or pan rises and spills over the edge. So you're cooking something, you're not really paying attention, [00:17:00] and next thing you know, the boiling water is spilling out of the pot or the pan. And so we say boil over. For example: Be careful or the pasta water will boil over and make a mess.

Next up, we have the idiom too many cooks in the kitchen. Now here I use this in a literal setting. But too many cooks in the kitchen is when too many people are involved in one task, making it confusing, unproductive, bringing frustration. So let's say that you are in a business meeting—and this happens often. You're working on a project and too many people are involved.

Sometimes it's really unhelpful. And so you say, "Okay guys, there's too many cooks in the kitchen." It's kind of like you're trying to cook dinner and there's five people in the kitchen with you. It can often be overwhelming. And so this [00:18:00] expression is used in the kitchen, but it's also used in a lot of different kinds of environments. For example: They couldn't finish the project on time because there were too many cooks in the kitchen.

Next up, we have the phrasal verb stir in. Stir in is to gently mix an ingredient into a larger mixture. Earlier we had mix in, right? We have whisk together. These all mean to mix different things to some extent, just differently. Stir in is very similar to mix in—almost the same—except stir is typically with liquids, right?

So I have cake batter, but I wanna add a little bit of milk, so I stir it in. I put it in, but I'm stirring or mixing it around with a spoon or a utensil [00:19:00] while I'm doing it. Mix in means that you add them all together. You might not be stirring while you're doing it. Maybe you're waiting till the end. So you're mixing all the ingredients, and then at the end you mix it with your hands. Specifically, stir in—you're pouring milk in with one hand, and then you're stirring the mixture with the other hand. For example: You should stir in the cream at the end so it doesn't get spoiled.

Next up, we have the expression to pop something into the oven. So anytime you hear pop, typically it means quickly—pop in, pop out, pop over.

So to pop something in the oven means to put something in the oven to bake or cook. For example: She popped the cookies in the oven and set the timer for 12 minutes. So typically this means you're gonna do something [00:20:00] quickly, not gonna take a long time. So for example, if I'm cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving, I'm not gonna say, "Let me pop this in the oven." You can, but typically it's referring to something that you're gonna cook quickly.

Next up, we have set off the smoke alarm. So by law, every home in the United States has to have a fire alarm. And when we accidentally make the smoke alarm or smoke detector ring, we say set off. So when you set something off, you accidentally cause it to go—to ignite. And so usually this happens while we're cooking or baking. It happens because we burn something, and the smoke hits the smoke alarm. And we say, "Oh no, I just set off the smoke alarm." For example: He burned the toast and set off the smoke [00:21:00] alarm.

Next up, we have the expression to burn something to a crisp. To burn something to a crisp is to cook something so much that you burn it—but not slightly burn it. It becomes black and hard. It is a crisp. It is completely crispy. A lot of times it falls apart. But you are not able to eat it. For example: I forgot the chicken in the oven and it burned to a crisp.

Now in English, you might hear burned with –ED, or you might hear burnt with a –T. Burnt is British English, and burned with –ED is American English. But ultimately, it doesn't matter. You can use either one wherever.

Next up, we have cool down. This is to let something become cooler [00:22:00] after it's been heated or cooked. You take something outta the oven, you want to eat it, but it's really hot. So we say, "I wanna let it cool down." For example: Let the cake cool down before you put on the frosting.

The frosting or the icing—that's what goes on top of cakes and cupcakes to make them good.

Alright, then we have runny. Runny means that it's too liquidy. It's not set enough. It's undercooked. If someone gives you eggs and the yolk—the yellow part—is very liquidy, we say, "Oh, these eggs are too runny. Can you cook them a little bit more?" But cake—if you open it in the middle—it could be too runny, too liquidy, undercooked. For example: The eggs were too runny for my taste, so I cooked them a little bit longer.

And lastly, we have flop or fail. [00:23:00] Now to fail, to flop—these can be verbs. They can also be nouns. "That movie was a flop." It did poorly in the box office. But flop or fail in general—something that goes wrong, something that's not successful. And we use this very, very often. For example: Her first attempt at baking bread was a total flop, but she tried again the next day.

Well, guess what you just learned? 16 very popular phrasal verbs, idioms and slang words that you can start using today. Literally right now, after the podcast is done, you can start using these words. So now let me give you a little homework assignment for today. At some point this week, when you're in the kitchen cooking or baking, I want you to out loud in English, talk about what you're doing and [00:24:00] use some of the vocabulary from this episode or. If you don't like to cook or you're not gonna have time to cook, I want you to put on a recipe video from YouTube and put it on mute so that you can't hear what they're saying.

What I want you to do is. Describe what's happening. Describe what the person is doing. What is the cook or chef doing? Are they stirring in something? Are they whipping up something? What is happening? This is a great way to build your confidence and to use the vocabulary. In context, don't forget to download the study guide as part of your homework so that you can really study what these definitions are. 

Well, that's a wrap for today's episode of The Real Life English with Gabby podcast. Be sure to download today's study guide so that you can [00:25:00] learn how to use this vocabulary confidently. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more weekly adventures in English learning. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a review.

Thanks so much for tuning in.