I have been seeing promos for the next season of Worst Cook in America on Food Network. One of the contestants says in a voice over that she has been married 27 years and has not cooked even 27 meals.

I wonder if people choose to eat junk food or prepackaged meals because they do not know how to cook? For example, in my opinion, macaroni and cheese is one of the easiest dishes to make from scratch and tastes so much better than the boxed kind.

I have to admit, I did not grow up cooking in the kitchen with my parents. I would attempt to assist my mother in preparing meals but was often told I was doing it wrong. So I get how discouraging it can be to want to cook and consistently be told that you are doing it wrong. However, I loved food and I loved reading recipes and imagining the way the food would taste.

Once I was living on my own, I began cooking, well, baking to be more precise. I have a MASSIVE sweet tooth! So one of my first things to make was chocolate chip cookies, from scratch. I was living on campus and the kitchen was not well stocked. But those cookies were so good and the smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies made me new friends!

My actual first meal that I cooked was spagehetti. It was very simple, just pasta, pre-made sauce, ground pepper, ground beef and onion. Yes, pepper was the ONLY seasoning I had on hand! I kept tasting the beef as it cooked and I simply could not taste anything and so I kept adding pepper and more pepper and more pepper. My friends were starving so I quickly added the sauce to the cooked onions and beef and mixed in the cooked spaghetti. As I served my friends, I anxiously asked them how they liked my spaghetti and watched their faces closely. One of them, after a couple bites, reached for his water and after a few minutes of gulping some liquid refreshment, said it’s really good but boy is it ever spicy!! Eeks! I guess I overdid it on the pepper! But the meal was still tasty!

I am still learning as I cook for my family. While I may not be a restaurant chef, my family and friends still enjoy my cooking, even if the results are less than perfect.