Growing up, cooking was never really a thing in my house. Dinner usually looked like TV dinners, canned vegetables or boxed Velveeta mac and cheese. Nobody formally taught me how to cook, and honestly, I never thought much about it until I moved into my first apartment.
Then I realized I could barely make anything besides vodka pasta.
For some reason, that was the one meal I could always make well. Beyond that though, I did not really know what I was doing. I am not exaggerating when I say I did not even know how to cook basic chicken. Pasta felt safe because it was hard to completely ruin, but cooking actual meals felt intimidating.
The funny thing is that I actually wanted to learn. I just assumed everyone else somehow naturally knew how to cook already. It felt embarrassing not understanding things that seemed so basic to other people.
But once I moved in with roommates, I realized a lot of cooking is learned through trial and error. My roommates taught me little things here and there, like how to season food properly, how long different meats take to cook and how to tell when vegetables are actually done instead of just burned.
I also learned a lot from the internet. Recipes, TikTok videos, random YouTube tutorials and Pinterest became my version of cooking classes. I started with simpler meals and gradually worked my way up to things that originally felt intimidating.
The hardest part for me was cooking meat. I was so paranoid about undercooking chicken or pork that I probably overcooked everything at first. Everyone online recommends meat thermometers, which I know is the smarter option, but at the time I was trying to survive college budgeting and unnecessary online shopping purchases were not exactly realistic.
So instead, I developed my own system of cutting pieces in half while they were cooking just to check the inside. Was it the most professional method? Definitely not. But it worked, and it helped me become less anxious about cooking meat in general.
I think people underestimate how intimidating cooking can feel when you were never taught the basics growing up. A lot of people assume cooking is common knowledge, but it really depends on your environment and what you were exposed to.
Learning how to cook as an adult can feel awkward at first because you think you are behind everyone else. But honestly, most people are still figuring things out too. Some people learned from parents, some from roommates, some from YouTube and some from accidentally ruining multiple meals before getting one right.
That is why I genuinely believe it is never too late to learn how to cook, or honestly learn anything. There is this weird pressure to already know how to do everything once you become an adult, but nobody magically wakes up with those skills.
You learn by trying, messing up and trying again.
Looking back, the fact that I used to survive almost entirely off fast food, pasta and the occasional homemade vodka sauce makes me realize how far I have actually come. I am still learning, but even adding fresh vegetables, meats and homemade meals into my routine feels like progress.
And honestly, that is enough for me.