Learn to Love to Cook: A Step in the Right Direction

 For the first 25 years of my life, I couldn't stand cooking. I lived off Healthy Choice lunches and expensive restaurant dinners. I drank Diet Coke. 

As luck would have it, Peace Corps sent me to a country where the meat was beef-jerky tough, the chicken feet were boiled, and the pig fat was fried (ok, so that one was good.) I probably never would have learned to cook in my life, had it not been either that or grilled pig snout.  

I learned to cook one Google search at a time. After some bad meals, then just mediocre meals, then actual good meals that I made, I went from hating to cook, because I sucked at it, to loving to cook, because I'm better at it. I feel a power in it. It's a skill, a valuable thing.

If you ever thought about learning to cook well, I can tell you that it helps reduce debt and your fatty muffin tops that jiggle when you ride your bike down bad roads (or is that just me?). Did you know Chili's serves a burger with 139 grams of fat in it? Cooking means you can control the quality and fat content of what you put in your body.

Also, this whole "food thing" isn't going away any time soon, so no matter how late you learn to cook, you'll always use it for the rest of your life. Soon you'll look at a frozen dinner and wonder how you ever ate that stuff.

Here's how you learn to love to cook:

1. Think of something you like to eat. Mmm, pad thai...
2. Look up the recipe. Google: "pad thai recipe" 
3. Read the recipe all the way through and any user comments.
4. Look up the ingredients you don't recognize.
5. Look up the cooking methods you don't know.
6. Buy the kitchen equipment you don't have.
7. Buy the spices you don't have. 
8. Head to the grocery store with an actual list of ingredients. 
9. Attempt to make it. Do not invite people over for a dinner party. This is not a party, it's practice. 
10. Repeat. 

Although initially it will cost money to build up a pantry of spices and the basic pots, pans and knives, cooking at home costs half of what you would spend at a restaurant. Ambiance and service are a luxury you cannot afford right now.  

Resources for people learning to cook:


If you hate cooking, it's probably because you suck at it. Mastery is something we enjoy. We like our jobs most when we feel like we're gaining a skill. We don't like to do things we're bad at. The best way to improve a skill is just to practice. Every meal cooked is a lesson learned at culinary school.

Here are some resources that helped me get started: 

StartCooking.com: I love this lady. Look how cute she is! She and her easy-to-follow cooking podcasts taught me how to make rice, how to measure food, and how to cut an onion -- things so basic I didn't even know I had to learn how to do them. 

  

Allrecipes.com: This is the web site nearest and dearest to my heart. You can search for recipes, then sort by rating so that you only cook the five-star stuff. You can also search by ingredients to use those foods you already have in your fridge. It also has a recipe box where you can store your favorites and a grocery list generator. But best of all, it has a community forum on there where you can ask a question literally while you're cooking and have it answered you while you're still waiting to put in the next ingredients.  

World's Healthiest Foods: Putting the founder's "look" aside, this web site is a wealth of great information. If you're struggling with your weight as well as your finances, this is an informative site to help you eat more whole foods on the cheap. Sign up for their weekly newsletter. Sure, he'll want you to buy his cooking DVDs and remind you of your grandpa, but he seems to know his stuff.  

The Library: A library is like a Barnes & Noble but without the Starbucks $5 entrance fee and the price for books. Plus you already pay for it with your taxes. Sure there are more insane people, but that's just part of the fun. Go get yourself some pretty cookbooks.

Google.com: "What is sautéing?" "How to boil water" "WTF is quinoa?" Don't ask your roommates. They'll only laugh at you. Go ahead and ask Google the dumbest questions about the most simple cooking stuff. It will just tell you, no mocking included. You can also search for substitutions for food you don't have or for measurement equivalents when you realize the only measuring spoon you haven't lost is the 1/4 teaspoon. 

That's the other thing the internet tells you: You are not alone.