Member-only story
When Did All the Fun Get Sucked out of Cooking?
I miss the freedom and self-expression I had when cooking terrible food as a young adult
It’s 21 years to the day since I first cooked dinner for my now husband, Sam. I was excited because I was cooking what I considered a real treat:
Bacon, a scraping of mayonnaise and unmelted cheddar cheese sandwiched between two pieces of dry toast.
Friends, it was bad. Not least because it was so dry.
I was 19 years old and fresh into college. This sandwich represented my first few months of food freedom, along with my other staple, a “spaghetti bolognese” ripe to give Italian nonnas a heart attack. Frozen ground beef, peas, and carrots mixed with the cheapest jarred bolognese sauce I could find, simmered for two minutes and topped with grated cheddar.
My early adult food was terrible.
It turns out I wasn’t alone. Author Sara Petersen recently asked her subscribers what was the very first thing they learned to cook for themselves. The comments section lit up with everything from inedible apple pie to pimped pre-cooked rice pouches.
Almost all the comments had something in common — the food sounded awful. Most of us it seems, hit early adulthood hardly knowing how to…
