I have always wanted to learn how to cook, but it just never seemed like the right time or enough time. My mom has been cooking for my family since day one and even when I went off to college I still had the dinning hall cooking for me. There was no cooking or learning with my mom or on my own. Now that I am a senior though and have my own kitchen the tables have turned. It was time to learn. Throughout the summer I wanted my mom to teach me how to cook meals. I can say I successfully cooked pork chops and chicken cutlets, but that was the only thing that I learned under the supervision of my mother. When I got back to school for my senior year that was the real test, my mom is not here to hold my hand and make sure I know what I am doing in the kitchen. It was time to figure it out for myself.

Grocery Shopping. I always thought grocery shopping would be so much fun. I would be able to get whatever I want and bring it home to eat. I would fill up my fridge and cabinets with the foods I deemed to be healthy or that I just really wanted. However, it is not as fun as I thought it would be. It is actually pretty tough. I have to keep reminding myself that I am one person cooking for myself I do not need a pound of cold cuts or three boxes of pasta. Figuring out what produce to buy is also the worst. Food goes bad. I wanted to buy so many veggies and fruits, but than I realize that I am the only person eating it, how much can I eat that quickly before it all goes bad. When you finally think you have everything you need you go to check out and realize you are spending about fifty dollars on food. But than again it is food and who does not love food. At that point you might look at that extra bag of pretzels and toss them aside to bring down that bill the tiniest bit.

Planning Out Dinner. You now have to think ahead of time. It will be around eleven a.m. you still haven't had lunch yet and you are already thinking about dinner. You will learn to start planning ahead. Your mind will think back to your fridge at home and what contents of it will be going bad the quickest. You end up planning your meal around the produce that will be bad the next day. I planned my last couple days around my milk since I knew it would be bad in a day. I planned to make Pastina for dinner since that required milk. However, that did not take as much milk as I would have hoped so then the next step was to make sure I was eating my cinnamon toast crunch in the morning so I could rid myself of the milk. When it still was not gone yet I decided to make a smoothie. Dinner planning is hard. You have to make sure you defrost the chicken or give yourself enough time to prepare it, than cook it, and than finally eat it.

Calling Mom. Since I really did not learn to cook over the summer with the guidance from my mom I was practically thrown into it. I am sure other students never had intentions of cooking for themselves and than suddenly they had to and you end up just learning. Well needless to say though my cooking experience so far would not have happened without my phone calls home to my mom. It has only been three weeks since I have been cooking for myself and I am still on the meal plan as well. Cooking really is not that hard once you figure it out. But being new to it can be kind of scary. The last three weeks every time I went to make a meal I would second guess myself and end up calling my mom to go over it with her. I still needed her as a crutch to help me out with my cooking skills. Now that I have been doing it, I have started to get used to it and I am figuring it out. I am learning to enjoy cooking and figuring out new things to make on my own.

If you haven't learned how to cook yet, do not worry there is always time. Getting thrown into cooking is honestly the best way to do it, you will actually learn. It is nice to know that I can cook and enjoy a meal now that I made myself. I believe in you guys you can do it too! Get to the grocery store and start cooking away!