Cooking with Helen: An Introduction

Cooking and I have a complicated relationship.

Anyone who knew me before I started zero waste will probably be surprised by how much I cook now. I...am not a good cook. There are things that I can cook after many, many repetitions and past failures, but it's not something I come by naturally. Until I decided to go zero waste, this fact didn't really bother me. I was perfectly content to live out my life eating $1 frozen burritos. Maybe every once in awhile I'd treat my body to a pre-mixed Dole salad in a bag.

Then I had to go and screw it up by deciding I didn't want to contribute to a consumerist culture and global warming. Dang conscience.

Unless you want to eat out at fancy restaurants that don't use paper napkins, fast food wrappers, or pizza boxes, cooking is an absolute necessity for the zero waster. As a result, I have 5 half-written blogs about my cooking fails that I have yet to finish because I keep having more bad (or "learning") experiences to write about. I realized it may be a good idea to write this Intro to Cooking with Helen to provide across-the-board context for those upcoming blogs.

What I like about cooking:

Every once in awhile, I get something right.
Usually when it's very basic cooking. Like
chopping vegetables, boiling pasta, and
throwing it all together on a plate.

Feeling self-reliant, confident, etc., especially when things go right
Knowing exactly what I'm eating
Eating the food when my cooking is actually good or makes my life better
Developing a life skill
Saving money (cooking is usually cheaper than eating out all the time)
Discovering new recipes.

What I don't like ("hate") about cooking:

I'm not naturally good at it (I actually have to [cringe] work)
Having to eat the food or throw it out when things go wrong
It's time consuming
Cooking for one person is hard
If you make more than you can eat, it's often waste
Spoiled food
The clean up

How I deal with these problems:

Meal planning
Inviting myself over for dinner with friends, family members, or my boyfriend
Buying bulk grab-and-go snacks like nuts or bananas or something that sounds less phallic
Cooking a lot of easy, storable snacks (i.e. hard boiled eggs) at the beginning of the week

Once I publish some of my cooking blogs, I'll list them here:

They'll contain advice along with the humorous stories, so you're sure to get something out of it regardless of how adept you are at cooking.

Labels: beginnings, cooking, zero waste