I ignored cooking for most of my life. My mom was a great cook, and always made us home-cooked meals for dinner, even though she had a very physically exhausting full-time job. I can’t really remember if she tried to teach me; I think she was always in such a hurry, she probably didn’t want me hanging around the kitchen and getting in the way.

It wasn’t until I was living on my own at university did this become a problem. I obviously did not have nearly enough money to eat out all the time (including the student union food court, which seemed quite expensive at the time), so that was really the first time I remember actually trying to cook stuff.

Needless to say, it went really horribly. I had no idea what I was doing, and while YouTube was around, nobody was posting how-to videos about how to cook stuff. This was 2008, so it was mostly just dogs on skateboards.

I remember always burning the food, and being really grossed out by raw meat. I think I tried this for a couple of months before resorting to Pizza Rolls and Top Ramen, just like the rest of my friends at the time. Once I had a decent income, I was still ordering out quite a lot, usually eating from fast-casual restaurants.

It wasn’t until the last couple of years did I discover that this, among many other things, is a wonderful skill that you can practice, and actually get pretty good at in a relatively short amount of time. The nice thing about practicing cooking is that since you have to eat something every day, every day is also an opportunity to practice. It’s also a daily ritual of creation, which, if you’re a creative person by nature, is something that more than satisfies that compulsion to create stuff.

Just like programming, I noticed that cooking something relatively complicated can easily put me into the flow state. It’s something that not only requires your full attention, but you need to be mindful of things going on in the background like timers, listening for sizzling sounds, checking on the onions to see if they’re transparent, etc. Dicing, slicing, and sautéing are all things that become refined with better hand-eye coordination. Competently operating a knife while intuitively knowing exactly how long something on the stove is going to take before it’s ready is an absolutely divine state of mind.

Another thing that lead to my renewed interest in trying cooking was becoming a vegetarian. Given my lifelong disinterest in handling raw meat, I suspect I may have been born a vegetarian, but just didn’t realize it until adulthood. While meat was something that I phased out over some period of time, I remember officially ceasing meat consumption sometime in 2010, while I was still in university. I still didn’t know how to cook at the time, so this actually lead to rather unhealthy eating habits that consisted mostly of starch and carbs. Surprisingly, I ended up gaining weight during this time.

Shortly after this though, I started discovering all kinds of new foods that I didn’t even know about before. I discovered the entire wonderful catalog of vegetarian Indian food during this time¹, including paneer, lentils, and curries. Falafel and hummus were things I never had as a child either. There’s even parts of Japanese cuisine that are vegetarian, leading me to try zaru soba, kitsune udon, and a lot of tofu.

Beginning the process of learning how to cook was significantly more pleasant now that I was dealing with entirely vegetables, which I think are remarkably beautiful and aromatic in their raw form compared to meat. I even learned about how to use oils, which was surprisingly something I didn’t know how to do when I first tried this. I only now realize is probably the main reason I kept burning stuff.

I don’t always take pictures of the stuff that I make, but here are some things that I think turned out exceptionally well. Not pictured are dozens of dishes that turned out quite bad. Of course, just like making anything, this is inevitable, and not to be seen as discouraging signs of failure.

---

Marinara Sauce

The first thing I felt I had to perfect was marinara sauce. I am of Italian descent, and my mom had her own sauce recipe that I can’t use because it contains sausage. This is something that I make regularly with raw ingredients; just crushed tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, dried basil, oregano and salt & pepper. A “secret ingredient” that I now add is diced Calabrian Peppers, which when used sparingly, add just a little bit of a kick to the sauce and a lot of flavor.

---

Homemade Gnocchi with Brown Butter Sage Sauce

Felt compelled one day to try and make Gnocchi from scratch, which is one of my favorite pastas. Pictured above is fresh gnocchi tossed with a homemade Brown Butter Sage sauce, which went really well with the pasta and a few vegetables. The salad is made from cabbage, sliced cherry tomatoes, and mixed with a homemade tahini dressing.

---

Ribollita

Ribollita is an incredibly delicious Italian stew that’s made with Cannelloni beans and bread. This is where I learned to make “soffritto”, which is the basis for a lot of Italian recipes and consists of diced onions, carrots, and celery. I cooked the stew with a parmesan rind and added some kale, and it came out absolutely wonderful. I think this is one of the best things I’ve made so far.

---

Egusi

This is a super unique West African dish that’s made with pumpkin seeds, spinach, and fried plantains. This is rather difficult to make, because you first have to make a broth with tomatoes, roasted bell peppers, oil, and vegetable stock, and mix it with ground pumpkin seeds at just the right time. It’s so delicious when I get it right though, and goes very well with the rice and plantains.

---

Paneer Makhani

This came out really amazing the first try. Store bought paneer, cut into cubes, mixed with a blended tomato cashew sauce adding curry spices (garam masala, tumeric, coriander, chili powder, and paprika). I added some peas to it as well, and it came out incredibly well. The cashew and tomato flavor were really strong, and I was pleased at how I was able to balance that with the curry spices.

---

Spicy Garlic Miso Tofu

I kind of improvised this one, and it came out pretty well. Garlic and chili peppers really balance out the saltiness of the miso. Goes really well with tofu and vegetables.

---

Grilled Carrots with Teriyaki Sauce

Hard to find a meat replacement for teriyaki, but this came out quite well. I still find it pretty hard to get the teriyaki sauce just right, it usually comes out too salty. I’m still experimenting with the proportions of rice wine vinegar and brightening it up with some lemon juice.

---

Hummus

Hummus is one of my all time favorite foods, and it is surprisingly easy to make. I’ve found that you really need to nail the tahini before you start blending the chickpeas with oil. Getting the tahini to be the right consistency first with water, then making sure the citrus, garlic, and ground sesame seeds are all perfectly balanced makes or breaks the hummus. I like making this at home, because I’ve found that all store bought hummus is really terrible for some reason! Hummus is great for vegetarians as well, because it has a complete amino acid profile and is pretty calorie dense.

---

Sicilian Style Pizza

I’ve got a pizza sauce recipe down pretty well, but I am still having a lot of difficulty with the dough/crust. Every time I make pizza, the crust becomes hard as a brick. I think this might have something to do with the humidity of my oven, or the temperature is too high—not really sure. I will keep trying though, because I really love pizza a lot.

---

Scones

I find that baking is a lot easier than cooking! The secret with scones is making sure the butter melts in the oven, so you need to keep cubes of butter really cold while you’re mixing them with the dough. If you get that just right, the scones will be dry on the outside but warm and buttery on the inside.

---

Banana Bread

This was probably the first thing I baked that came out surprisingly well. Especially great thing to make if you have a lot of old/rotting bananas lying around.