I used to be nervous about cooking. Not bad at it, but since cooking was never one of my parents' preferred tasks, I never really got a chance to learn properly. Cooking was a chore, not a hobby or art.
It wasn't until I moved out with a boyfriend who very much enjoys the art of cooking that I began to appreciate — and more importantly, understand — how nice it can be to spend a little time in the kitchen.
But for a lot of people who say that they "can't cook" it's actually more about fear and lack of experience.
If you keep being told how dangerous it is to undercook chicken, but also how easy it is to overcook it and turn it to leather, then the idea of doing it yourself is daunting.
The common belief is that cooking is an art, while baking is a science. You can improvise an entree, but not a dessert.
Which is only half true. If you couldn't improvise in baking, we wouldn't have so many new and inventive treats in the world.
Want a denser, chewier cookie? Swap the all purpose flour for bread flour, which creates more chewy gluten, but if you do that, you may need to also add more leavening to compensate for the heavier, denser dough.
That's the sort of calculation that can make people turn to boxed baking mixes and shy away from scratch recipes.
Boxed mixes and meal kits are a great way to dip your toes into the cookery world because they lower the number of variables you need to remember, while still providing a home cooked result.
Maybe by the time you've made a few meals from the kit, you'll be swapping that one ingredient for another you like a bit better.
And just like that, you're learning the art of cooking and the sky's the limit from then on.
