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It Gets Better
Funfact. I absolutely hate cooking. My mind wanders out the window the very moment I take a step into the kitchen while my body becomes violently shaking akin to exorcised evil spirit. I feel violated by the very fact I need to do something in the kitchen.
So if I cook, I make sure to do plain things. Minced meat is your friend. It can work with rice, spaghetti, as part of casserole, or as a cutlet...and prolly more. It cares not. It's fast. It's botherless. It's cheap. It'll accept you as you are.
You enter the kitchen, lose all vibe for like 10 minutes, then leave with something that while maybe not being gourmet, is tasty enough to still make you feel like you did good.
And you can drop anything into minced meat. Beans, veggies, mushrooms. Again, it cares not.
I get the comic, but I wonder if people get that they have a choice at the end - throw up their hands and face the inevitable conclusion that cooking your own food is a hopeless pipe dream, or learn to cook.
It does not take very many tries to start cooking better than a restaurant. And the best part is you can make sure that only your favorite ingredients get in there.
After like maybe half a year of cooking for myself a couple times a week (instead of frozen food or like canned food) it's seriously started to astound me how bad some restaurant food is.
I know take out is mostly for convenience, but if the problem is taste you're in luck because the bar to clear for tastier food than take out is really really low.
I can cook some reasonably decent chow, but most people are deluding themselves if they think their cooking is better than any restaurant that isn't totally terrible.
Restaurant-style cooking is very equipment intensive. A proper Chinese style stir fry needs a gas jet burner and a big wok. A proper pizza needs an oven hotter than home ovens can do. Proper rotisserie meats like gyros or kebab need, well, a rotisserie. You can try to emulate these at home with varying degrees of success, but typically you do more work for what is objectively an inferior product. Many restaurant dishes also require the kind of prep work that doesn't make sense unless you're making them at scale.
With home cooking you have to play to your strengths and accept the fact that a lot of restaurant dishes are not worth making. There's lots of great home cooked dishes you can make, and oftentimes making them yourself at home does make them feel better than at a restaurant, but let's be honest the overwhelming majority of us are not cooking tastier food than a restaurant.
Home cooked food is also going to taste a bit poorer because restaurants design their recipes to be appealing, not good for you. Full fat butter and too much sodium in everything.
You can, however, absolutely make better food at home. And it can be delicious if you know what youre doing and have a good grocery. But you've gotta put time and effort in.
most people are deluding themselves if they think their cooking is better than any restaurant that isnβt totally terrible.
Absolutely true.
I agree and disagree
If Iβm making home shawarma I donβt have the meat kebab spinner, but thatβs okay. I can swap in roast chicken and as long as Iβve got good garlic sauce and pickled veg, and a good pita it can still taste amazing. Is just not a proper shawarma.
Home cooking is better for stuff like a cheap steak house or a mid tier chain restaurant or whatever.
Iβm not a Michelin star chef, the high quality restaurants are doing things I never would, and theyβre amazing for that. But I donβt go to them often, and Iβd rather spend money on that level of food than the common mid quality restaurant.
For most things, I can make it as good or better than a restaurant because I can get better quality ingredients. The one thing I can't seem to get to be similar is a burger to fast food burgers. I've used super high quality beef, I've used even lower quality beef, tried various seasoning combos, etc. I can make a damn good burger, but it's nothing like the insanely addicting flavor of fast food burgers. IDK what they are doing, but it's not just the quality of the ingredients you can see. The only place that seemingly just makes homemade burgers is In-n-Out. I can replicate that taste all day.
They put a drug in it to make you crave it fortnightly!
Probably a combination of sugar and msg in different parts.
I find fast food burgers to be pretty boring - the flavor is kind of flat, simple.
My homemade ones are great because I use a spice mix for burgers (a copy of one Williams Sonoma used to sell, that has things like Worcestersher powder, garlic, onion, thyme, mustard powder, etc).
I have heard, tho I don't know if its true, that McDonald's injects the beef patties with beef broth to make it taste meatier. I will say, working there, the pickles smell extra pickle-y and have a much stronger flavor than any store brand I've ever had (never made my own so can't compare there). And they are also super bright green. Like almost neon. Their food also makes me feel full off a smaller portion of food than anywhere else, which I've questioned numerous times.
If anyone is doing weird shit with their food chemically, it's McDonald's.
I think this has more to do with what kind of restaurants you go to
Ngl, for me, itβs the opposite. Cooking at home is actually better since you can try different recipes, mix some things up, and come up with something way more delicious.
I have the opposite problem. I learn how to make something I like, then I realize βOh shit, I donβt need this much lasagna in my life. This is going to kill me. I must seal away the recipe forever.β
I was getting real good at cakes, had to stop for my health.
Pasta is deceptive. A box of pasta, a pack of meat, 2 or 3 jars of sauce and all of a sudden you have 8 pounds of food...
Accidental meal prep, lol
If you like to eat tasty food, you should learn to cook tasty food. There -is- a learning curve if you're going in completely blind, but you'll pick it up way quicker than you'd expect.
Absolutely a skill worth developing!
Are there people who almost exclusively eat takeout?
How do they afford it...?
By constantly complaining they're broke.
Iβve lost count of the number of people I know tangentially who complain about not having any money yet talk about constantly ordering DoorDash for some cookies or other frivolous crap.
Funny thing is if they went and got it themselves they would save a ton. Sometimes the prices are almost double on doordash.
Quick and dirty analysis of Doordash prices over the last I don't care. Doordash recognized that they had two markets. A captive market (people who are stuck in their houses for whatever reason, for example) and an elastic market (lazy people who want tacos, for example). Depending on the day, I'm a little of column a, a little of column b so no judgements here. It just looks more and more like Doordash decided to take advantage of their captive market since their elastic market actually responds to price shocks.
My boss doesn't even own silverware, he eats out 3 meals a day EVERY day.
Some people can afford it so they never cook.
CEO of big market chain in Spain (Mercadona) claims people will not have kitchens by 2050. They started selling ready meals some time ago and are now expanding it.
Skill issue, obviously. I'm not a great cook and the food I make is better than 90% of restaurants.
This here. My stepfather was a chef so I got used to very good food and he was kind enough to teach me the basics. I wouldn't call myself a good cook, but I can do maths and I can make way better food for so, so much cheaper than eating in a restaurant.
But it is a dog, it will literally eat poop!
Also calling it an it due to a recent meme.
Coming out of atrophy hurts. The longer atrophying, the more it hurts, the harder it is, the longer it takes. So get out of atrophy as soon as possible. Gently. Now. Gotta start from somewhere, sometime, and that somewhere is right here, and that sometime is right now. Yeah, you'll likely be sub-par, but that's the karma of losing it from not using it. Mendwards! What's cooking next today?
to be fair, it looks like you've pan fried oat meal, not sure what your expecting
I kind of want to try it now, though. It's a thing to fry rice before you cook it, so maybe you can also do that with oatmeal?
Add more butter and salt until it taste good.
Do it more often, it will get better.
[off topic]
Best cookbook for a beginner is "The Joy Of Cooking."
Breaks everything down, even boiling water.
All the restaurants buy shitty Sysco food anyways. The only thing a restaurant has to offer that I don't have at home is a deep fryer.
Not everyone lives in the US.
suggestion: tell people how it's different where you live
I'm learning that my cheap air fryer works great. Homemade onion rings - ohhh yeaaahhh.
It's a process. Eventually, you'll figure out what you like and you'll have a reliably stocked pantry to whip up a meal you'll enjoy on short notice.
Right now, I'm going pretty basic: rice + beans + veg + cheese + olive oil + spice--most. everything made ahead of time, before I get hungry.
You'd never catch a real dog complaining!
My dog complains when we have a new bag of dog biscuit but still give her stale biscuit from the open bag.