Let Her Cook! Or At Least Let Her Try

The other day, my roommate cooked chicken soup for dinner. She placed a pot on the stove and began adding the ingredients: broth, chopped vegetables, shredded chicken. Our apartment was filled with the lovely, comforting aroma of spices and home. The soup was warm and cozy, the perfect pick-me-up dinner for the crisp winter weather. My other roommates and I sat around the kitchen with bowls of soup, enjoying a nice meal together, courtesy of the apartment chef. 

A few days later, I made a quesadilla for dinner. It was a flour tortilla with shredded Mexican blend cheese. I singed my thumb on the pan because I couldn’t find a spatula and naturally tried to flip it with my hands. I somehow undercooked and overcooked my quesadilla, because the cheese didn’t quite melt but the tortilla was definitely burnt. 

Some people, like my roommate, are naturals in the kitchen. They just have an inherent knowledge as to what makes a meal good, how to make something taste better, how to boil pasta without water spilling out of the pot. 

But for other people, like me, the kitchen is a foreign, inexplicable land. Everything about cooking, from the “broil” setting on the oven to the difference between slicing and dicing vegetables, makes no sense to me. 

When I was younger, my inability to cook was endearing. Cute, even. I would stand in the kitchen absolutely clueless, watching my parents carve the Thanksgiving turkey or barbecue ribs and quietly wonder what a turkey baster is. As an officer in my high school Home Ec club, I was assigned to just washing dishes and running the social media account instead of actually cooking. 

For the majority of my life, my lack of culinary prowess was a minor issue. I was fortunate to grow up among skilled chefs in a family that valued home-cooked meals. During my freshman year of college, I was entirely reliant on dining hall food, occasionally gross but oh-so-convenient. There was never a desire to learn how to cook, because I could always rely on someone else to brave the strange, scary, unknown kitchen. 

However, upon moving into my first college apartment, my apathy towards cooking turned an ugly head. Instead of relying on others to cook for me, I was now solely responsible for the food on my table. 

Very quickly, I was forced to come to terms that my cooking ineptitude was something that won’t be easy to overcome. Whenever I share this with people, I’m met with the same responses: “Cooking is just following instructions.” According to Taste of Home, “If you can read, you can cook.” According to my mom, “It’s really not that hard, Lauren.” 

These responses are all givens — I know that cooking is just following instructions, and things like seasoning a piece of chicken really shouldn’t be that difficult. But for some reason, I always end up adding way too much spice or setting the stove way too high. I cut my fingers when cutting lemons and accidentally rub my eyes when chopping onions. I either space out the steps too much that the food becomes cold, or I attempt to cram it all at once and end up overwhelming myself. Once (and this is more the product of true stupidity than my inexplicable ineptitude), I burnt a bag of microwave popcorn. To this day, I still don’t know how I did that. 

However, not all hope is lost. I’ve picked up a few skills, such as learning how to cook an egg four different ways (scrambled, fried, sunny-side-up, omelet). I was gifted an air fryer by my parents and unlocked a whole new genre of cooking (super convenient, given that the oven still scares me to this day). I’ve also gotten creative — adding frozen dumplings to vegetable broth for a more substantial meal or marinating salmon in chili oil and serving over rice. Once, I even sliced a cucumber without cutting myself. Score!

So, how have I survived over the past two years of cooking on my own? It’s honestly unclear. Cooking for myself has continued to be one of the biggest obstacles I have faced in my new independent, adult life. But it’s also been one of the most pivotal learning experiences in this new stage of living. Through my attempts at conquering the kitchen, I’ve learned important lessons about time management, safety, and efficiency. I’ve slowly developed the habit of planning my meals ahead of time, learning what I like and dislike in terms of cooking, teaching myself to balance my busy schedule with making dinner. 

Cooking isn’t for everyone. Clearly. Sometimes, it’s easier to just walk down the street and pick up a burrito, or rely on your chef roommate to share her chicken soup with you. And I still beeline to the frozen food aisle of Trader Joe’s. 

Just like following a recipe, learning how to cook is a process. As I continue to grow older and live out my independent, collegiate life, I’ve found joy in tackling the trials and tribulations of the kitchen. 

I know I’ll never be able to call myself a chef. But who knows? Maybe one day, I’ll graduate from air fryer to oven, or “novice” to “intermediate.” Or, at the very least, be able to make a quesadilla without burning it. Or myself.

• cooking
• food