Your Relationship with Cooking

What is your relationship with cooking?

When I talk to family and friends about cooking, there are usually three relationships:

• Like it.
• Love it.
• Hate it.

If you like to cook, you know the basics and you have the proper utensils. You probably have a few extra pots and pans for those special recipes you were going to try.

Love to cook? If you love to cook, you probably have a kitchen equipped with the best utensils and pots and pans needed to prepare meals. Those who love to cook have often taken cooking classes in their local communities of have taken a "cooking vacation."

When the relationship of "hate to cook" is brought up, it is because there are a number of outside influences on the person who prepares the meal. Oftentimes, it is the mom and/or dad who work outside the home who has to prepare the meal. There are sports activities for the kids, playtime, and parent meetings that make time management a little difficult.

Singles find it is usually easy to go out to dinner or to pick-up a take-out meal rather than spend time preparing meals.

There is nothing wrong with eating out of picking up your favorite fast food on occasion. But, we all know that healthy eating involves cooking meals at home to make sure we receive the nutrients our body needs.

It is important to keep in mind that we all have to start someplace. Most of us know the basics but when it comes to variety in our meals, we have to pull out the cookbook or recipe file to make sure we have the proper ingredients, know the correct measurements, and know how to combine these ingredients to make the dish palatable.

During the work week, we want meals that can be easily prepared in a minimum amount of time. On our days off, we can experiment with new dishes.

If you are just getting started with cooking, you will find basic cooking information in the articles on this website. Once you have mastered the basics, you can keep building on your skills. You may find that it is not difficult preparing meals from scratch rather than purchasing prepackaged meals.

You will also find basic information on various types of ethnic dishes such as Italian, Greek, Mexican, Spanish, Chinese, French, and so on. You will also find recipes for various dishes. You can make a dish your own by adding or subtracting ingredients and/or the amount of ingredients to fit your taste.

Cooking can be a fun experience for all family members. On your days off, the entire family can be involved in preparing a meal. There are safety rules that should be observed when young children are involved, but there will be a sense of pride when their dish is placed on the family dinner table.

In time, if you find you like to cook, you will probably start creating your own recipes. These can be handed down to your family and will survive for generations.

Let's get cooking!