Ten Reasons You Should Learn To Cook

1) You love eating in restaurants. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing all that different about restaurant food. What is special about the food they make in restaurants is that (in most cases) the people making it know how to cook. As you become a better and better cook, the food you make will be like the food they make in restaurants, only without the $60 price tag, reservation, wait, drive, tip, snotty waiter, 75% markup on common malbec, and public restroom. Since I learned to cook, we only eat out if we're on the road (and rarely even then, we have joined that breed known as the "cooler nerds") or craving something that needs to be outsourced (I find sushi to be just too much of a bother to make myself.)

2) It's healthier than eating in restaurants. Another reason that restaurant food tastes so good is that it's often loaded up with oil and salt . These places aren't interested in your health, they're interested in a return visit- it's how they stay in business. Eat at home more often and know what you are eating more often. Your waistline will thank you.

3) You will save oodles of money. Seriously. It will cost you about a quarter- sometimes up to a third, for expensive cuts and rare fish- of the money you pay in a restaurant to make the same thing for yourself at home. Cutting down on eating out from twice a week to twice a month could halve your spending on food.

4) Win friends and influence people. No,seriously. There is nothing nicer than giving your friends the gift of a home-cooked meal. Just think -there's no tab for them to pay, and getting together in the privacy of your home means you get to listen to soft jazz, not whatever trance music a restaurant owner likes, and you can have a nice game of charaedes when you've all had a bit of wine, which is a great laugh but would probably get you kicked out of the higher-end eating establishments.

5) Learning to cook is an investment with a very high return. I guarantee that you will suck at cooking for a little while, but in time you will have to trash the whole thing and call for chinese with less frequency. And from there on out, the more cooking you do, the better you will be at it. Julia Child, Martha Stewart and Alton Brown have probably all started grease fires and produced inedible things made of capers and potatoes. They just didn't have television shows yet. Or maybe they didn't air that episode. Regardless, the road to a cooking show is paved with unrisen soufflés.

6) Support your causes with your diet. Want local? buy it and cook it at home. Want organic? Ditto. Want vegan? again, cooking at home is the best way to ensure that your food lines up with your principles. ONe of the most effective ways we vote is with our wallets, and supporting local farmers & reducing carbon footprints starts by getting to the farmer's markets. And if you aren't a slow-fooder or an ethical eater or whatever, you have something to feel really good about regardless.

7) Cooking is social. Chop veggies and sip wine with your true love. Trade stories with your oldest girlfriend while the lasagna bakes. Update your blog while the soup simmers. Making food together - or with someone else rattling around in the general vincinity as you do your utmost to knock they stocks off and win their hearts by aiming at their stomach- is one of the best ways to connect and bond. Far more organic, collaborative, amusing and dangerous than sitting accross from one another at the local tapas joint. I promise.

8) Cooking is creative. I can't draw, I don't play music. But give me the leftover vegetables for the week and I can surprise you! It's a great way to express yourself.

9) Get things just the way you want them. Not that i'm a control freak or anything! Never spend $9 on a mediocre curry again.

10) Cooking is easier than you think it is. They say that if you can read, you can cook. And it's true. You learn to add flair to your recipes with time and practice (see point #5) The internet, with its hordes of recipe resources, cooking glossaries, hints, and blogs, makes cooking easier than it has ever been. It takes a little practice to get the hang of it, but it's easier than lacrosse. No doubt. And you don't need dental insurance.

...and a bonus
11. Contrary to what a lot of commerical cooking websites would have you think , you don't need a lot of equipment to be an amazing cook. Frugal Trenches talks about making her meals with just one pan! and her meals sound really good! One of the best cooks I have ever known was a young lady - a college student in Mexico City... she lived in real student digs and made food you wouldn't believe on a two-burner hot plate. Curries, frittatas, savory meat dishes, decadent desserts . The woman knew no bounds. When she graduated and moved to a place with four burners and an oven, we all gained ten pounds. :)