Mildly Infuriating

The problem is that in almost every case, restaurants’ only objectives are to make food that tastes good and make customers think they’re getting a good value. Hence, tons of high-caloric additives and huge portions.

When you cook at home, even if you use oils and other high-caloric ingredients, you still use way less than restaurants do. I promise you, take a “healthy” meal from a restaurant and compare its nutritional content to the same thing you would make at home; the difference will be drastic.

A couple examples:

1. Broccoli side dish. Cooked at home in a pan; some oil and salt and pepper. In a restaurant? Drowning in butter and tons of salt.
2. baked potato. At home, some cheese and sour cream. In a restaurant? Bigger potato with tons of butter, sour cream, gobs of cheese, bacon.

In these examples, both taste good. But the restaurant versions are tons of empty calories that contribute to a very unhealthy lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, I like that shit too. But it’s rare for me, I’d rather make it myself and control what goes in.

You don't live in Germany, obvs. It's schnitzel and Maultaschen all the way down.

It doesn't have to be unhealthy. They do have salads and grilled chicken, and even grilled chicken salads. Of course, the healthy items are quite a bit more expensive than the unhealthy items ($3 for large fries vs $4.20 for kale salad).

How does it not? It’s just a boring activity.

I sincerely asked, and I assume you are similarly sincere in asking.

For me, it's an absolutely quotidian task, every aspect of which I approach mindfully and joyfully. Using a good knife, decent pans, a halfway decent grill/range/oven... the joy of using good tools skillfully cannot be overstated. I mean... where else in our days do we get to play with knives around people and they love the results? :D Woodworking, I guess, but you can't eat those results.

I love everything about cooking:

• sourcing good local and seasonal ingredients
• prepping the ingredients properly and with the least waste
• layering flavor profiles
• creating a full sensory experience for myself and my circle
• understanding the underlying physics and chemistry at every step
• creating even a simple dish that appeals to all senses
• did I mention playing with knives?
• then getting to feed, nourish, and sate people with my craft... The experience of cooking takes the necessary and workaday task of sustaining ourselves and elevates it to an alchemical and spiritual level.

From a holistic, connected-to-the-land, tree-hugging hippie context, cooking takes the alchemy from Shit Wizards (AKA farmers) and transmutates those inputs into magical energy. Food nourishes the body; good cooking nourishes the soul. Gathering tribe around a meal that I made is even more fulfilling than the literal billions of people who, directly or indirectly, use the software I built.

From a biological context, knowing the provenance of my food is the culinary equivalent of using open source software. From an ethical living context, knowing that my food providers are using fair labor practices, compassionate animal welfare, and good land stewardship enables me to make food that I eat and share in good conscience. Also, garbage in, garbage out on every level. This is stuff you're putting in your body. The body that carries around your brain, both of which ya kinda need to do other things you enjoy. Food is medicine, and so many ills I see, physical and otherwise, stem from poor food sourcing and prep.

From an efficiency, conservation, and creativity context:

• turning "waste" material into an amazing stock
• turning leftovers into an entirely new dish that utterly slaps
• that on-the-knife-edge, tuned-up feeling of bringing a meal together... it rivals playing live to a sold-out crowd
• doing more with the least amount of everything... give me a good knife, good cutting board, good produce stand, a saute pan, and a shitty butane burner, and I will crank out a meal for you that will get YOU laid :D
• the mind-body connection of skillfully wielding my tools in pursuit of an explicit and relatively immediate goal; it might take me years to build software, but it takes just an evening to make something that feeds my tribe

In the grand scheme of human experience, there are few things that everyone can do that fire on all sensory cylinders while delivering the spiritual high of creativity manifested. Cooking is something everyone can do.

And now we have those who'd rather work for recreation, and those who'd rather work as recreation. I can find better things to spend my money on than food.