When I was a kid, I wanted to be a pastry chef when I grew up. I dreamed of spending my days making chocolate eclairs and decorating petite, elegant cakes and deserts -- until I realized I'd have to work with people. My little introverted self noped out of that one pretty quickly. Now I quietly indulge myself by watching as many of those time-lapse cooking videos as I possibly can. Here's why they're actually the best:

1. They're creative and inspirational.

Puff pastry-wrapped apples with truckloads of cinnamon and sugar? Spicy Cheeto mozzarella sticks? Garlic-parmesan-butter mashed potatoes? Sign me up. The only thing better than watching delicious foods get made is actually eating the food. Food is said to be the happy marriage of art and science, and you get to watch cool stuff happen--like "How it's Made" but with food.

2. You now have new ways to spice up a meal.

Pun totally intended. Although comfort food is awesome--who doesn't love homemade chicken noodle soup or a grilled cheese sandwich?--it can be more exciting to have a change of pace when it comes to food. Want to show up everyone at the family barbecue? Let's try Bahn Mi burgers instead! I don't know what that is, but the video looks cool! What about Bulgogi Cheesesteak sliders? Or Peking Duck burritos? Or a spinach and feta grilled cheese?

3. Seeing something made helps you know what you're doing, especially if you haven't tried it before.

"Is this how it's supposed to work?" has been said a number of times in my short-lived culinary endeavors. I don't know about anyone else here, but I've set many a thing on fire, including my hair, a feather-duster, and an aluminum coffee mug (there is a lesser chance of setting something on fire when you only have to shove something in the oven instead of cooking something over an open flame), so it's easier to avoid disaster if you can actually see what you're supposed to be doing.

4. Even if you don't end up making any of the foods you watch in the videos, it's still cool.

I'm not going to try candle-carving after seeing it on the internet. I'm not going to try painting tiny cats on my nails after seeing it done in a youtube video. I'm certainly not going to try negotiating for American hostages after I saw Tom Hanks do it in a movie. And that's OK, because it's fun and totally fine to watch something for its creative value.

5. There are also tiny food tutorials!

The normal-sized hands look like giants when making tiny mac and cheese. Look at the tiny pancakes on a tiny stove, then flipped over with a tiny spatula and put on a tiny plate. The best thing is that food is actually being made. (I was going to add that Jacques Torres was doing tiny foods with chocolate before it was cool, but...)