When I moved away from home to come to college, I was actually kind of excited about learning how to be an adult.  Sure, I was also looking forward to not having my parents breathing down my neck about grades and how late I stayed out, but I was eager to prove to myself that I could survive on my own.  Part of not being treated like a child anymore is, well, not living like a child anymore, so I was secretly kind of expecting to be able to live what I considered an “adult” life.  Learning how to cook was one of the things that I was most looking forward to.  I’m capable of making more desserts than any human should consume, but for some reason “real food” has never been on my radar.  I can make cheesecake, but not spaghetti.  Cooking struck me as something that should be fun, delicious, and a vital part of learning how to keep yourself alive.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the…Cornell-ness of Cornell university as well as perhaps my own immaturity.  There is no time here for things like morning trips to the gym.  There is no time here for things like maturely sipping tea and reading novels in cafes.  There is definitely no time here to go out, buy ingredients, and make yourself a nice homecooked meal every day.  No, I do not live like an adult here.  I don’t even live like a child.  I live like an animal.  For dinner today, I sat in the basement of Olin and ate most of a bag of “x-tra cheddar” goldfish.  When I do eat “real food”, it’s dining hall food.  It’s kind of hard to justify the time and money and effort that goes into making actual meals yourself, when you’ve already paid for a meal plan.  Which is not to say that our dining hall food is bad — but I never got around to learning how to cook.

So, with that said, on Saturday I attended a cooking workshop at the Cornell College of Human Ecology’s food labs.  The instructional portion of the workshop, though brief, was actually really informative.  I am proud to say I knew all the cup/tablespoon/teaspoon conversions, and I knew how to measure flour.  However, I honestly did not know what a saucepan was before now.  Every single recipe that has instructed to me to use a saucepan?  I’ve been using a frying pan, because I guess “pan” sounds like something flat to me.  I learned how to chop vegetables (who knew, there’s more than just hacking at it like the killer in a horror film). You should keep vegetable and meat cutting boards separate, different knives are for different purposes, minced is smaller than diced, etc.  The actual cooking portion of the workshop was really fun, and I was impressed to find that every one of the foods we made as a group turned out at least decent.  We all left with a packet of simple recipes that we could try at home.

Overall, though, I think the biggest takeaway from this workshop is that even if you’re short on time, supplies, and experience, cooking shouldn’t be impossible.  As demonstrated by one of the recipes, you can make a whole pasta dish in one pot in about a half hour.  Eggs are always a good option, and you can put anything in an omelet to make it a full meal.  Once you’re confident in making a few simple foods, there is endless variety.  One piece of advice that I particularly liked was the notion that you shouldn’t be afraid of using the microwave.  I’ve had it ingrained in me (mostly by my grandmother) that real cooking never uses the microwave.  Like the microwave is “cheating” or something.  Ovens and stovetops though, are less accessible in a dorm, much slower, and often not a practical option for making quantities of a single serving for a single person.  It is possible to find a happy medium between Cup Ramen and a steak dinner, and “good” doesn’t necessarily mean “complicated”.

I wish I had time in my schedule to take an actual food lab class at the College of Human Ecology, but even if I don’t I’ve been encouraged and inspired by this short lesson that I did get to take.  So, tonight’s goldfish aside, I’ve decided to attempt to cook myself a meal at least once per week for the rest of the semester.  We’ll see how it goes.