And with take-out options at every corner, it's become so easy not to cook. Ironically, as the Food Network and celebrity chefs gain popularity, cooking for many has evolved into a spectator sport, something only professionals do.
Which kind of drives me crazy. As does the growing number of people who pronounce with some measure of pride: "I don't cook." Until pretty recently in the annals of human history, you had to cook to survive; our ancestors did not need to go to cooking school in order to eat.
I like to cook; it makes me happy. It gives me pleasure to have a pot of soup simmering on the stove, to roast a chicken, to throw a piece of fish on the grill, to roll the dough for a fruit tart, or even to pull together a nice meal from leftovers. I'm not talking about creating elaborate, photo-ready architectural wonders, worthy of the glossy food magazines. I'm talking basic, healthy, homey meals.
So when my daughter, who shares an apartment with college friends, said she wanted to start cooking more, I jumped at the chance to convince her this was a great idea, that, in fact, she already knew how to cook. That most cooking is quite simple. That even the most daunting techniques become easy with practice, just like the pancakes she perfected at 5.
And, as most people who cook regularly already know, it's much cheaper to cook at home than to eat out, and that even goes for fast food, as Mark Bittman recently wrote in the New York Times. So cooking will save money.
I proposed the idea of chatting each weekend with my daughter, telling her what I was planning for the week, sharing my shopping list and recipes, which I could walk her through.
Her response: "Mom, we could do a blog!"
