Cooking my meals is one of the best parts of my day. I wouldn’t trade it for restaurant dishes or ready-made microwave treats.
I’ll Let You in On a Secret…
My mother’s isn’t a good cook. Alas, she never was. When I was a kid, she used to plead with me to eat her chicken soup. She would beg me to.
I would look from her palms brought together in supplication to the curious yellow lumps in my bowl, which could have been either dumplings or partially melted chicken fat, I’m still not sure, and I would panic.
Sometimes I would take a few spoonfuls, but I would always have to force myself to taste it.
It’s not that all her dishes were bad. She made the best brownie cake I ever tasted, and she was pretty good at French fries, too.
But usually something was amiss with her food — there was too much oil in the stew, or the chicken breast wasn’t fried enough, or the onions in the soup were rudely cut.
I guess my mother never got over cooking as a chore. She never got any fun out of it.
But I do.
Why I Enjoy Cooking
I look forward to my hour-long breaks in the kitchen. It’s one of my favorite activities in the day.
I began to cook when I stopped eating meat. This is very much a novelty in my carnivorous family. When you cook your own food, you know exactly what goes into it.
Doing it yourself can also change your eating habits for the better. It makes you far more attentive to what you eat. It also gives you full control over your ingredients — no more additives, no more preservatives, no more sugar, no more bad oils.
When you cook your food every day, you don’t always know what you’re going to eat. You just take what’s available and use it the healthiest and tastiest way you can think of.
While it’s true that you have to put in at least 15 to 20 extra minutes into preparing your meals, you can often save money, and that compensates.
For most diets and menus, buying the ingredients yourself is cheaper than buying food ready made. To say nothing of restaurants.
There’s something artful and calming about chopping carrots or slicing mushrooms on a wooden board, about pouring tomato juice into your soup pot on the stove and stirring it, about adding seasonings to the careful cuttings in your frying pan.
Onions can be more tricky, but it seems that if you put the cutting board on the stove and turn on the vent, the stinging loses its sharpness. Then you can slice them at your leisure.
Knives may bite your fingers now and then. But then your dexterity does improve with time.
Things will certainly spill. But then the cleaning burns up extra calories.
Becoming Food-Conscious
Cooking your food is a good excuse to get up from your desk and move a bit in the kitchen. It’s great for writers who sit a lot, and for anyone who works from home.
It can also challenge your creativity and encourage you to discover interesting new dishes and ingredients.
It doesn’t make you a chef or a gourmand, but it makes you food-conscious. And that’s one of the pillars of living a good life.
I don’t know what the future holds in store for me. I haven’t yet sorted out my health problems, but one thing’s clear — if I ever marry, she won’t have to worry about cooking.
She can read or write poetry or sing or play with the dog or do what she wants to do — I’ll take care of the carrots and the lentils, the olive oil and the salad, the mangos and the avocados.
boy with a hat 
I cook every night except Friday and Saturday’s. I don’t serve or eat red meat so it is either chicken or fish or a veggie dish like pasta primavera. I bake, I love to bake, bread, desserts, etc. I enjoy most of all this, it is a great stress reliever.
Pasta primavera… Is that as good as it sounds? Never tried it.
It’s really good! Italian veggies over pasta…yum!
That’s brilliant that you love cooking!
I just ate lunch and now I’m hungry for those mangoes.
I agree with all you have said in today’s blog. Cooking your own food is developing a relationship with what you eat and not just eating junk. At this time of year my favorite is fresh asparagus and mushroom risotto. I love it enough to make it my meal. Have a great day.
I love to cook. You are right, hour long breaks in the kitchen are the most therapeutic. I often play a film or TV show or talk in the background to keep me company while I slice and chop and fry and simmer. When I take extra care over the food, it tastes the most divine. Sometimes food surprises me. Like today, when I made a tomato sauce and poured it over veggies and popped it in the oven for two hours. The end result was something absolutely divine, each assembled ingredient had a taste and texture of its own. Your words are certainly musical, and this was a thoroughly enjoyable and relatable post to read.
Sometimes I cook like your mother (and your description brought up a clear image in my head of me begging my children to eat even though deep inside I know it’s not good), and sometimes I cook like you. I’ve noticed that it really depends on my mood. If I’m tired, stressed out, angry then all those feelings spill out into my dinner. However, if I’m calm and stress-less, then cooking isn’t a chore but a creation process.
Beautiful!
Yes! I love cooking vegan food with herbs and spices, colourful vegetables, a pestle and mortar, and a wooden spoon! Thai vegetable coconut curry -creamy, sweet and enlightening
Yes! My only wish would be to have a big enough kitchen to fit a comfy armchair where I’d sit in between stirs. And while we’re at it, maybe fit in a cute dishwasher too. 🙂
If you decide to marry, I recommend that she read this blog. What bait! 😀
Thanks for sharing, I envy your ability to cook your own meals! I often wish that I had the motivation to do it, however after working 10-12 hour shifts, 5 days a week and then obligations on the weekend, I often come home exhausted and end up just cooking pre-made meals or heating up a pie. Do you have any advice for someone in my position that would love to learn to cook, but simply can’t work up the motivation or time?
Quit your job!
Haha! If only I could, maybe one day if I win the lotto 🙂
Cooking has been a huge part of my life as well as a great stress reliever. I love trying to recipes, but my most favorite meal to cook is chicken and dumplings. It reminds me so much of my great grandmother!
I love this – and I completely agree, there is something incredibly therapeutic about turning individual ingredients into a finished meal. (though I’m very lucky to have a mum who is a fabulous cook!)
Couldn’t agree more, it’s much easier and quicker to chuck in a microwave meal, but there isn’t a better feeling than when you and your family all enjoy what you’ve cooked! My favourite is my first blog on my page; a vegetarian chilli.. it’s delicious!