For the first nineteen years of my life, I truly hated to cook.
I didn’t just hate it, I was bad at it too.
I would burn brownies, screw up instant mac and cheese, and there is an infamous popcorn incident that my old teacher will probably never let me live down.
One night in high school, I was babysitting two girls and their mother asked me to make soup for dinner. So, I nervously googled “how to boil water,” because I was literally terrified I would burn down their house, leaving behind nothing but a single soup packet.
One might think that coming from a long line of competent home-cooks would help, but it did not. My Italian grandmother makes amazing raviolis. My mom, despite working a full-time job and lugging around two kids, put a healthy meal on the table every night. My younger sister turned out to be quite a competent baker, but I, apparently, did not inherit the cooking gene.
I remember my mom trying to teach me a few things before I left for college, but I just wasn’t interested.
“I have a meal plan, Mom, I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t one day.”
That day quickly came the summer after my freshman year, when I had an internship in Anaheim, California. I was living with a childhood friend and two other girls, but I was on my own for meals. And let me tell you, I got bored of sandwiches and undercooked pasta real fast. I would like to say that I then embarked on a Julie&Julia-esque journey, learning how to cook complicated dishes all the while discovering myself.
But no.
I still stuck with my sandwiches and Del Taco lifestyle. But I was a little more interested in cooking when I visited home.
Sophomore year is when I realized I liked to cook…and what I really found, is that I like to cook for people. A couple of my friends and I would take over one of the Nelson kitchens and make baked goods on the weekdays, and giant meals on the weekends. We swapped recipes from home and tagged each other in Tasty videos on Facebook. Fam Dinners became the highlight of our Sunday afternoons and served as a good way for everyone to eat for cheap and connect between hectic weekday schedules.
A typical Fam Dinner.
With all of us now back from abroad, Sunday Fam Dinners have resumed, and we take turns hosting in our respective off-campus houses. I thoroughly missed having a kitchen while abroad and now my small kitchen brings me so much happiness. I still don’t like cooking just for one—so much effort!—but I will happily make dinner for my roommates or send out a string of texts asking who’s around. Perhaps that’s just the hospitality major in me wanting to serve people.
I’m not an amazing cook. But my Cajun mac ‘n cheese is pretty bomb, and I have yet to poison a HerCampus member with my brownie cookies.
For our first meeting back, I made a HerCampus-themed blackberry pie.