The death of cooking.

Do you know how to cook? I mean really know how. I'm not talking just heating up frozen dinners or chicken nuggets. I'm not talking about buying cinnamon rolls in a can and putting them in the oven. Real cooking is going the way of many other skills. We watch and listen to singers and decide that we could never sing because we can't sing as well as they do. We watch New Yankee Workshop and decide we could never make anything as beautiful as Norm Abram can make it. Skills like this have become relegated to the realm of professionals. Therefore we are required to just buy things ready made. Food has become the same way. With people like Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray and Mario Batali out there, we can't make food like they do so we shouldn't even try. Just buy it ready made and you are good.
I say, let's take back the skills. We hear that homemade food is better and cheaper and that is true. But who has the time and skills to do this? Everyone does. Living cheaply means that a few skills need to be learned or relearned. The trick is not to change everything you do all at once. Decide this week that you want to cook one thing from scratch. Plan ahead of time what you want to make and what you need. Using recipes from these shows is fine. Inspiration is always a good thing. At first you may not have many of the ingredients called for but as you do this more and more, suddenly you will have on hand many of the basic things you need for good cooking.
Just take one small step at a time. In the future I'll be giving you a few basic recipes I have used over and over. I use them because they are fast, and good, and versatile.


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Thanks!