I've hated cooking all my life

Until I turned out to be able to do it well.<br><br>I'm a 64 year old woman, and I've hated the idea of cooking for almost 60 of those years. Somehow, I've mostly avoided it; I hated being forced to help as a child, and while I've always been very proud of my children, I've never felt any disappointment about the fact that I didn't have a daughter to "pass down" my non-existent cooking tradition to. When I was little, I used to fantasize that I would grow up and have a lot of money, and hire a personal chef. That was my earliest idea of a rich life; a chef who would come to my house and cook whatever I wanted, three times a day.<br><br>Of course, if I'd been rich, I probably would never have learned to cook (and who knows, maybe I would have only been able to boil water). But it's not like I didn't *try* to learn. I remember asking my mother why we couldn't buy a cookbook and follow the instructions, and she'd scoff at the idea and say that it wouldn't turn out right. I tried again to learn as an adult, using recipes and making mistake after mistake. I was a busy single mom with three kids; the few times I tried it, I had too many failures (on top of working full time and raising three kids with no help, it was just too hard). So I fell back on whatever was easiest: instant mac and cheese, frozen pizzas, boxes of mix with the instructions "boil some water, crack in an egg, stir". I mostly hated cooking because I hated being tied to a stove, standing there stirring something for 20 minutes straight. I never had a KitchenAid mixer, or a slow cooker, or an Instant Pot. I never even had a blender. I hated standing at a counter chopping something; the hated using a knife (I'm not sure why, because I never cut myself). I've hated cooking for almost 60 years.<br><br>I'm retired now; the kids are grown, I live alone, I don't have a lot of money and I don't want to eat fast food or take out. So I fell back, finally, on cookbooks. I started simple: lentil soup, using mostly instant spices. Then chili with ground beef; sloppy joes for a potluck at work; mac and cheese with real grated cheddar and Parmesan (not the powdered stuff in the box). I learned to boil eggs in the Instant Pot. I bought frozen vegetables and learned to sauté them in butter, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I learned to roast carrots and broccoli and asparagus in the oven. And suddenly, I didn't hate it. I liked standing at the stove and smelling the vegetables in butter; I even liked chopping them. I liked the slow process of stirring something on the stove, the smell of roasting vegetables in the oven. I liked the process of following a recipe, experimenting a little, trying something new. At 64 years old, I discovered I *could* cook.<br><br>And man, can I ever. I made a cherry pie last week, from scratch. I'd never made a pie in my life, not even with one of those pre-made crusts from Pillsbury. Somehow I'd always assumed I couldn't; I had a friend in college who made beautiful cherry pies every summer, and when I asked her to teach me, she just laughed and said it took too much work. But I followed a recipe; it turned out perfect on the first try, and I'm never buying another pie from a grocery store. I've mostly stopped buying anything pre-made from a grocery store; I make my own mac and cheese with real milk, real butter, real cheddar and real Parmesan. I make my own broth, and my own stock, and using it to make the best lentil soup (and chicken noodle soup, and beef stew) I've ever tasted. I make my own salad dressing, and put roasted chicken on top of a kale salad with dried cranberries and a citrus vinaigrette. I never knew how much fun it would be, or how empowering; I feel like I can do anything. At 64 years old, I discovered that I love cooking.<br><br>&#x200B;