Cooking for one person is for the birds, so I can see why she isn't motivated if it is just her.
I agree with this. If I lived alone I’d have a can of tuna and cut up veggies for dinner, or a sandwich or cereal. I don’t often want a large meal in the evening, but my snacky dinners wouldn’t be enough for DH.
Post by klingklang77 on Jul 3, 2023 10:56:25 GMT -5
I was very young when I first started to cook. I learned to make fried eggs when I was about 5. My mother “supervised” while she was on the phone. I never liked cereal, so this was the compromise. I always liked to bake with my mom and often helped out. When I was about 11-12, my mom got this cookbook (Pillsbury) from the supermarket and I used to love making recipes from it. The baking section was great. I would make family meals as well.
In high school, I did half vocational school and did culinary arts. Then I went on to study restaurant management.
I have just been doing it all my life, so I can’t really say when it became a regular basis. I just always did it.
I come from a LONG line of women who don't cook, which seems to super throw people because we're Italian American and I'm supposed to have a lot of nonna's recipes lying around or something. My maternal great grandmother cooked every meal and my grandmother and mother never really learned. I don't think my grandmother's mother cooked either.
I learned after our wedding. I was 29. I had all these shower gifts and an abundance of time to learn how to use them, because I was a SAHW for several years with serious Type A tendencies. I went from not knowing how to cook anything to having a cooking blog and becoming that person who was like, oh, I make all my own pretzels and crackers, because WHY NOT? I had mastered cooking, breadmaking and cakes/pastries and moved on to candy making when my husband was like, you know, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if you got a full-time job. 😂 Now I rarely cook, except for holidays and parties but I do have every cooking and baking tool known to man because people still give them to me for every event.
In college. I paid for a 1/2 meal plan and budgeted the rest for cooking in my apartment. I burned a lot of food (forgot about a chicken in the oven once). But even being a bad cook qualifies as cooking for myself on a regular basis.
I got better and more sophisticated in my 20s. I do think it’s hard to “cook regularly” for just yourself. I did a LOT of soup from Chinese takeout and only a few recipes on a regular basis. I did get better and better for gatherings and parties.
I was engaged when I did my first Christmas meal on my own. On Christmas Eve, a cousin went to the hospital with appendicitis and MIL turned to me and said to cook the meal for everyone. THAT was amazing.
I could probably do a full sit down meal by the time I was a senior in high school, so 17. I could follow a recipe and knew cooking techniques long before that but that’s. probably when I could pull all the components together. My sister and I always helped out in the kitchen with my mom from as far back as I can remember. When I went away to college, we were known as the house to come eat at before going out to parties on the weekend. We always had something good cooking. That continued until my kids were born, I’ve hosted many many dinner parties over the years. Once I had kids, cooking became a real chore. It’s only become fun again in the last year. I just re-subscribed to Bon Appetit and my kids like to pick out recipes for us to try together.
Post by jeaniebueller on Jul 3, 2023 14:35:04 GMT -5
when i was in grad school. Early/mid 2000s Food Network was my gateway. I learned a ton from Rachael Ray, Ina, Alton, and that everyday italian lady (can't recall her name). I miss the days when food network was actually cooking.
I'm 37 and I still prefer using the crock pot, 1-2 pot meals or meals that use one bowl and a sheet pan. It stresses me out to time multiple foods to come out at the same time.
I cooked a lot in my late 20s and early 30s when I was single/newly married. I enjoyed it. I read cookbooks and made all sorts of stuff. I especially like baking desserts and baking savory dishes. I asked for all kinds of nice bakeware for my wedding and remember using all of it a lot those first few years. I can't totally remember but I think I used to cook a decent amount when DD was a baby too. After I got sick, I couldn't chop stuff or handle hot pots and pans so my mom started cooking for the kids. Now I feel so weighed down with depression and I don't know what else that I buy fresh food and it goes bad before I can get it together and turn it into a meal. I subscribed to The NY Times cooking section on Black Friday and I routinely ignore the daily emails with a hint of guilt every time. My mom still cooks for the kids on the weekdays and somehow we drag through the weekends. I try to cook one major meal a year at the holidays and even that is so hard. I hope I can get back to feeling like my old self someday and want to cook again.
My meals usually involve everything going into one entree, not a bunch of separate items or side dishes. I can think of only one meal in regular rotation with distinct separate plated items - and it still all cooks on the same sheet pan (roasted broccoli plus parmesan chicken). It's not that I don't cook, I just don't do the "a plate with a meat, a veggie (and a starch), plus a side salad" style cooking.
Watching Sara Moulton - Cooking live on food network back in the mid/late-90s... so in college I guess? I liked that people could call in and ask dumb/basic questions and she was really good at explaining things you "should" know.
That said, I've been in a food rut for about 9 months now. We have been baaaaad about eating well."Snacky dinner" happens a lot!
I learned some basic things as a kid/teen, and added a few more simple basics once I moved out of the dorms in college. After college, when I was with exH, he always told me I was a terrible cook and I wasn’t “allowed” to try. Once I got divorced, I started teaching myself and now (in my late 30s), I’m really good at it. Take that, exH.
As in, prepare a full meal in your kitchen and present it as a meal, on a regular basis.
I was talking with a friend of mine in her early 30s and she still eats a sandwich or cereal most nights. She has a couple of go-to recipes but doesn’t feel like she really knows how to cook. My son (23) could maybe make some meals but prefers protein bars and takeout. He will cook eggs or grilled cheese but that’s about it.
I realized that I didn’t really learn the art of cooking full multi-component meals, and getting all components done at roughly the same time, until my kids were old enough to eat at the same time as us, and it became important to me to have family dinner together. So - mid 30s?
But I feel like I still cooked regularly before then, but it was mostly extremely simple stuff and heavy reliance on frozen foods and things like quesadillas which are no more complicated than a sandwich.
How about y’all?
I don't think I really learned how to cook a whole meal (protein, starch, veg) together until I was cooking professionally. I started in a bakery, then a cafe, then an industrial kitchen at Microsoft, then cruise ship, country club, halfway house, sorority house, back to Microsoft. It took me years to learn how to scale down meals for 2 people instead of 20+.
Reading some of the responses, I feel like here is a good place to drop my confession that I successfully made French macarons several years before I successfully made rice crispy treats that weren't a solid rock. It turns out I have zero patience when it comes to melting marshmallows, and I will turn the heat up too high so it goes faster, and I will wander away from the stove and let the sugar get too hot. (Yes, I learned, I can make them now, but my baker friend thinks this is the funniest thing in the world.) ETA: I hope this comes off as funny anecdote, and not weird (it's very late and I belong in bed).
Skills and a certain tolerance for drudgery is a spectrum.
Also, homemade crusty bread is great, but sometimes what you want is a PBJ on soft squishy wonderbread.
I have never been able to get Jell-O to gel right or not have those packets of rice pilaf/red beans and rice and rice turn out dry or crunchy. My Kraft mac and cheese came out slimy. I, too, make much fancier and complex food and baked goods all the time!
I think I just don’t like following instructions and don’t have the patience for something I don’t find creative or interesting. But yeah, my husband finds it super funny that I can’t handle making packaged foods.
My mom is a fantastic cook but can’t make boxed foods. She was always trying to figure out how to make hamburger helper but it was always soggy and weird.
I’m the main cook in my family but I’d say I’m still learning. I’m not a natural cook. If you gave me a bunch of ingredients but no recipe I’m just now starting to feel confident I could produce something but that’s just in the last few years. I cooked my last 2 years in college but that was very basic things like pasta with jarred sauce and breakfast foods. I remember my roommate and I being super excited when we made meatballs from scratch.
My meals are still a mix of from scratch and prepackaged meals. I don’t like a ton of components. Spaghetti and meatballs is a complete meal. I’m not doing salad and bread even though I know that would round it out.
I have never been able to get Jell-O to gel right or not have those packets of rice pilaf/red beans and rice and rice turn out dry or crunchy. My Kraft mac and cheese came out slimy. I, too, make much fancier and complex food and baked goods all the time!
I think I just don’t like following instructions and don’t have the patience for something I don’t find creative or interesting. But yeah, my husband finds it super funny that I can’t handle making packaged foods.
My mom is a fantastic cook but can’t make boxed foods. She was always trying to figure out how to make hamburger helper but it was always soggy and weird.
I’m the main cook in my family but I’d say I’m still learning. I’m not a natural cook. If you gave me a bunch of ingredients but no recipe I’m just now starting to feel confident I could produce something but that’s just in the last few years. I cooked my last 2 years in college but that was very basic things like pasta with jarred sauce and breakfast foods. I remember my roommate and I being super excited when we made meatballs from scratch.
My meals are still a mix of from scratch and prepackaged meals. I don’t like a ton of components. Spaghetti and meatballs is a complete meal. I’m not doing salad and bread even though I know that would round it out.
At least I am not alone lol
Agreed about the spaghetti and meatballs. I’m always amazed when I see people post menus and it’s like spaghetti and meatballs and a side of green beans. That’s it! You’re not getting a side. That’s a complete meal. I really try to make any side dish do double duty so I don’t have to make more than one.
Post by basilosaurus on Jul 4, 2023 3:54:40 GMT -5
Home ec was required for everyone for a trimester. And it was the most pointless thing. We spent 6 weeks learning to hand sew a hem and put on buttons and the other 6 weeks making, I shit you not, crustless cucumber sandwiches and basic toll house cookies. We had to iron a short at home and get our parents to sign off (probably the last time I ironed).
We did have to do a 3 course meal at the end with a printed menu and parents attending. I can't believe I remember that my group made orange chicken with a jar of apricot preserves and Lipton onion soup mix.
And while I do say it was basic and worthless, I've met adults who couldn't scramble eggs or sew on a button. Which is quite frankly shocking in today's world of YouTube and TikTok
I haven’t yet at 41. DH loves to cook and cooks all our meals. On nights he’s not home I order take out.
Same here
me too. I get snide comments all the time about how I can’t cook. I don’t like to and H loves to cook so it’s one of those “chores” we’ve divided that way. When H is gone, DS always asks where we can get take out from.
I started cooking as a sophomore in college when I moved off campus and had a kitchen. It was mostly basic stuff like meat and rice, or spaghetti, mac and cheese, etc. I got very interested in the Food Network somewhere around that time too. It started with cookies/baking at the holidays and then I got more interested in making everyday meals. Like a few people have said, I learned a ton from Rachel Ray. I also watched a lot of Giada and Barefoot Contessa and basically anything I could get my hands on.
I still love cooking and do about 5 meals a week. I love hosting friends for dinner and attempting more difficult recipes or things that take all day. It's one thing I feel I'm really good at and confident in, and it helps me destress (minus the cleanup part hah).
My Mom picked up a job working nights when I was 12. I started helping to cook simple meals with my Dad. Like he would take care of barbecuing the meat but I would do the rice and veggies.
At 14 my parents separated, so my Mom sent me to live with my grandma for a week where I did an intensive cooking course (I shit you not). My grandma worked as a baker and cook in her teens/20s. At that point I could pull together lasagna from scratch, etc. I would cook the two nights a week my Mom was out when we were at her place alternating weeks. I learned how to BBQ from my Dad and continued to help him.
By 16 I was often pitching in on galley duty and making large batch meals for up to 30 teens on the tall ship I worked on.
At university I made real family dinners and then would portion them out and freeze them as leftovers. My housemates were flabbergasted. I also ate a lot of sandwiches and fried eggs for dinner since I didn't always have the time.
So it feels like always. DH says that I was parentified by my Mom, but she didn't have much of a choice and I also am grateful that I am capable in a kitchen. I still make loads of my grandma's recipes in regular rotation and they are the best.
DH learned to cook once we moved in together after university. He's not bad, but he struggles to do more than focus on one thing. For instance, this weekend he made an amazing smoked brisket but that was it. I did all the sides and the organization. He likes to come in like he's some cooking hero, but I feel like I do 90% more.
Probably 12? My mom taught be how to bake when I was very young and I could make dinner for the family by 12. My step mom had breast cancer and went through chemo when I was 14 and I spent that summer doing all the cooking at my dads house.
I don’t love cooking, I love baking. We eat out a lot as we are busy and don’t always have time for cooking and cleaning.
I can cook but it is just so much work and I LOVE cereal. It might be one of my favorite foods so if I get the choice to only feed myself... yep cereal it is
Post by sillygoosegirl on Jul 6, 2023 14:22:35 GMT -5
I knew how as an older teenager, before moving out. I didn't do it often, but I understood the concept and did it sometimes. I've never in my life gotten a lot of practice at doing it on a daily basis, as DH likes cooking more than I do, and I moved in with him right out of college. In college I either ate at the dining hall, or on breaks would always be part of a meal rotation where two people would work together to cook for the group on a rotating basis through breaks (one of the things I miss most about college--while agreeing on food preferences and budget with so many people was often a pain, it was fun to cook for a group and even more fun to just show up to dinner in the dorm kitchen all the rest of the nights).
But I still absolutely prefer to cook breakfast for dinner. I don't see myself growing out of that, like, ever.