Teaching Yourself to Love Cooking

Finding the motivation to cook for yourself or your family on a daily basis can be difficult. As responsible adults, we all have to do it, but it can feel like an enormous chore, especially when we’re already pressed for time. I’ve recently moved in with my fiancee, and we’re trying to get on our feet financially. One of the things that this entails is almost never ordering in (we live in New York City, the cheap delivery food capital of the world, and it can be a huge temptation at the end of the day to capitulate to laziness and order a pizza). Over the past two months, I have been trying to develop the discipline to cook every day. Here are some tips I’ve picked up.

1. Realize that you’re in charge.
How many times have you ordered something in a restaurant that looks delicious on the menu, but turns out to have an ingredient you can’t stand? As you learn to cook, you will be preparing food to your own tastes, and you can use ingredients that you will like. By shopping for and storing your own food, you can also ensure the freshness of the ingredients. And if you have any special dietary needs, you can make sure that the meals you cook conform to them. As the cook, you have control over what goes into your meals.

2. Bond with other cooks.
Maybe you have an older relative who is a marvelous cook. Maybe one of your co-workers is an amateur gourmet chef. Bring up in conversation that you’re teaching yourself to cook. People love giving advice and sharing recipes, and you may learn useful things from these conversations. Food brings people together, too, so ask lots of questions and enjoy the chance to talk to people with whom you might not otherwise find much in common.

3. Become a Brave Taster.
At my nursery school, Brave Taster was the honorable title awarded to those children who were always willing to try new foods. I was not one of those children, but people change. Cooking becomes boring if you’re set in your ways and only willing to eat a few things. Try new ingredients and new styles of cooking. You don’t have to throw your tastes out the window to do this – you can learn new ways to prepare your favorite dishes, or new combinations of ingredients you already know that you like.

4. Know your limits.
Obviously, you’re not going to try a new technique with every single meal, nor does every meal have to be fancy and exciting. Sometimes you will have the time and other resources to make a large, elaborate meal, and sometimes you’ll have to make do with something simpler. As you develop a repertoire of dishes, make sure you have recipes for all occasions – slow-simmering stews for winter days at home, for instance, and light salads and cold soups for busy summer evenings.

5. Clean as you go.
Especially if you live alone, it can be daunting to finish cooking and be faced with a towering pile of dishes in the sink. Washing items as you use them saves time at the end, and makes the task less overwhelming.

6. Revel in the ingredients.
Food is beautiful. Spices come in every shade of yellow, orange and red. Garlic slips its papery skin to reveal a pearly flank. Olive oil gleams like liquid gold and smells a bit like earth. Avocado flesh is the color of spring grass, and silky to the touch. Use all your senses to appreciate the raw ingredients with which you cook.

7. Entertain yourself.
Many people listen to the radio while cooking. I’m not much of a radio listener, but I’ve discovered that listening to audio books works just as well. If you’re alone in the house cooking, keep your ears and mind occupied while your hands go about the business of cooking. Otherwise, consider asking someone to hang out in the kitchen and keep you company. Cooking itself is not an unpleasant task, but it can be isolating to feel stuck in the kitchen if there are others in the house.

8. Add something new
Take a dish from last night’s dinner, add one ingredient, and you have a new meal. Examples of this include using the sauce from a pasta dish over rice or with grilled chicken breast; adding chopped raw vegetables to a cooked lentil or bean dish; or adding Greek yogurt to leftover beet salad. These are just a few ideas – the possibilities are infinite.

9. Get in touch with your inner mad scientist.
Did you ever make potions as a kid? Part of being human is being curious about the physical properties of the world around us. Cooking is a chance to witness a wide range of chemical reactions and interactions. From carmelizing aromatics to emulsifying fats, the kitchen can be as exciting as any chemistry lab, if you’re paying attention.

10. Feed the people you care about.
We are social animals, and it feels good on a primal level to nourish those we love. Even if you live alone and habitually cook for yourself, make a point of cooking a meal now and again for a family member or a friend you like and admire. Watching someone close to you enjoy food that you’ve made is a great feeling, and it can help keep you motivated to continue cooking. Be sure to find out in advance if they have any food allergies or other dietary issues – part of being a good friend is being willing to do the research.

Remember that learning to cook is an adventure. Good luck, and have fun!