I enjoy how it makes people happy. This isn’t universal to everyone, but to many food is a source of comfort and pleasure, on top of being sustainance. For myself, it’s a healthy way to keep my strength up, but also a good way to encourage good mental health.

It can also be a gift you give to make others feel the same, or an act of service through the time and effort spent cooking. It’s so many good things wrapped up in one, and it makes a great gift to not only for your wellbeing, but to your friends and family too

My wife and I cook because we love good food, and unique foods. But also because we’re cheap and eating out is expensive.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ll eat out when we need to, or when we want to, especially with friends. But we can spend that extra money, BECAUSE we cook the majority of our meals.

We don’t meal prep per se, but if a meal can be doubled, we double it, and eat leftovers for a few days. We lead busy lives, can’t cook every day.

I grew up eating mostly from boxes and cans. My mom did good with what we had. There were fresh meats and veggies at times, we had a small garden, but I was picky about veggies. So my wife handles all the flavors and meal ideas. I’m more of a tool in the kitchen. Chop those veggies, fry that steak, wash those fruits, etc.

I can follow a moderately complex recipe, I can make a roux, I know a lot of do’s and don’t’s. But honestly when left to my own devices… I eat garbage, to my detriment.

Again, I love good food. But I’m also lazy. And I easily tolerate garbage food. My wife gets sad when the food is bad, so when she’s involved, we make good food. One of the reasons I miss her when she’s away.

I got tired of burned mac and cheese in college and decided I have to. Back then I couldn’t afford to eat out. Now - well I could afford to eat out of I don’t do something else, but I have yet to find a restaurant at less than $50/plate that isn’t a disappointment - I can good the same for less, it tastes better, and is healthier.

This is gonna be a long one.

When I was 8 years old, my mom took me to our favorite fish shop, as one does on a Friday during Lent. I remember sitting there, eating my fish cakes and fries. A man walked in, and everyone said hi, and greeted him by name. Handshakes all around. It was clear that this man was well loved and appreciated by the community. I asked my mom who he was, and why everyone was so happy to see him. She said “He’s the owner.”. That moment put me on the path that I have followed for my entire life. My goal in life was to be “The Owner”.

I taught myself basic cooking skills. Before I was even nine years old, I was making full meals. By the time I was a teen, I was writing my own recipes. I got kicked out at 14 (long story), and the woman who took me in (now my MiL) helped me level up my knowledge by teaching me all about authentic Mexican food. We would spend a lot of time in her kitchen, cooking together and just generally having a good time.

Fast forward to 19, and a broken condom meant that my wife and I had to get Serious about being Adults. I saw a Help Wanted sign in a restaurant window, and I walked in and asked for an application. The manager asked me if I could cook, and I said yes with confidence. He went into the back, and when he came out, he threw me an apron, told me to get to work, and that was it. This was my time to sink or swim. And good God did I swim. Within a year I was running that fucking kitchen. I was making good money, and I loved my job. Cooking is my passion. I love watching someone take their first bite of a meal I made and smile.

I used the income from that job to put myself through culinary school. I used that education to jump up to a better restaurant, with better pay. I worked my way up to Executive chef, and my wife (who is basically an investing wizard) put every extra dollar we had into the market. We bought our first house. Our money was stacking up. The real estate market where we lived exploded and suddenly, our house was worth a lot more than we paid for it. It was time.

We bought some land in another state, with a much lower CoL, and built a bigger house on it. We sold our old house and bought a failing restaurant nearby our new house. I had done it, I was The Owner. I turned that failing business around, and business was booming. We were packed every night for dinner, and weekends were a blur of plates flying through the pass.

I could have retired a decade ago. My wife’s investing magic has made us more money than we can reasonably spend. All of our kids and grandkids have/had college funds and some money in trusts. But I am still driven to do what I love, and that means working 12 hour shifts in my restaurant every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It means knowing our regulars by name. It means getting excited to see new faces walk through the door, and turn into regulars. Feeding people. Turning fresh, high quality, local ingredients into beautiful delicious meals that bring people joy. Providing my employees with a fair income, health insurance, and a genuine pride in what they do.

In short: I don’t cook to live, I live to cook. The day I can’t cook anymore, take me out behind the barn and shoot me. I always joke that I will work in that kitchen until I drop dead on the line. Many people have inspired me, too many to list honestly. But it all goes back to that day when I was 8 years old, eating my fish cakes and fries, when I met The Owner. He was my first inspiration to get into the restaurant industry. RIP Frank Grubie. My life would not be what it is if not for him.

Because I love to eat, and I can make myself 16 cups of ice cream with mixins for way less than the store can.

It started as just my job but after doing it for so long I realized I loved it.

The only problem is I cook purely by feeling so I’ll make something that’s absolutely delicious but won’t write anything down so I can’t make it again 😭

I’m really good at it, and that means I can show off and cook for other people. I like flexing my skills while also doing something kind for someone.

One of my other hobbies is sewing my own clothes. I get a lot of compliments on what I make, especially if people know I made an outfit myself. But I don’t get nearly as many compliments as I do on my food.

Cooking is the only hobby in which I can make something I’m proud of and show it off to someone in a manner that involves all 5 of their senses, before the social contract compels them to give me feedback and potentially even help me tidy up the mess.

I learned how to cook out of self defense.

Mom never cooked. Dad struggled with toast and the only reason we had ice in the house is that the recipe had been passed down for generations.

So if I wanted to eat and didn’t want food poisoning, it was on me to take an interest.

My grandmother taught me how to make a generations old family soup, when she passed away, I inherited her 60 year old cook-pot and recipes and built up my own kitchen around that.

For me cooking is a sign of love. I cook a delicious meal for my partner to show that I appreciate her and that I love her. Its something my dad would do for me as a child, even after a long day at work he would come home and cook a homemade meal for us all. As a kid I didn’t understand what it meant but as I got older I started to. It would have been easy to just do TV dinners or pick up food on his way home but he knew a homemade meal was special and worth it.

Its also how I can relax after a long day as I usually play some music and lose myself in the process. The creativity of it too, to go from no idea what I am making to opening the fridge and taking in all the different ingredients and then the inspiration begins to flow.

I love good food, and I grew up poor, that combination makes cooking an inevitably

A lot of good reasons in the comments and many of them apply to me to some degree, but honestly the main driving force is my own neurodivergent food apathy and pickiness. I know if I cook, it’s going to be food I like and prepared how I like and that makes it worth it to me. By elevating it, it’s enough to get me to want to eat which has always sort of been a battle for me.

And I mean this gem, from Nigella, as highlighted by a goodreads review, is just so good…

“you will never hear me talking about “healthy” food. I loathe the term, but not as much as i am disgusted by the contemporary mantra of ‘clean eating.’ Food is not dirty, the pleasures of the flesh are essential to life and, however we eat, we are not guaranteed immortality or immunity from loss. We cannot control life by controlling what we eat.”

Most of us have experienced loss as well as pressure to eat more “clean.” But what i need is to heal and enjoy. Not deprive. Just so fucking good.

My mother. She is the most self centered, hypocrite person I know.

As 70s kids, my sister and me were unhealthy, hungry, skinny, with orange flaking skin from a fad diet called makrobiotics. We had an overdose of carotene and salt. To this day I do not eat or cook pumpkin, only the smell of it gives me ptsd. She would balance my behaviour. If you behaved too “yang” (probably adhd), 2 weeks of “yin” diet, which was just salads prepared in the most bland way…plus some slapping around or other punishments for a good spiritual esoteric cleansing. I was out at 14, when child protection services stepped in.

My aspiration as a kid was to buy me a piece of cheese when grown up.

Love for cooking started at boardingschool making toasted cheese sandwiches or omelets for everyone in our group for lunch on certain days. I was able to learn in our central kitchen (with the impressivly large equipment) where all the meals where prepared for the 5 groups (with 11 to 15 teenagers per group), and I was able to help prepare holiday specials. On wednessdays we had cooking class were we first would buy ingredients on a 10 guilder budget and then prepare meals, or bake bread and what not for the kitchen staff.

Had a good time there. I was very fixed on preparing and eating tasty food, and am to this day. Trained as a cook lateron, and still cook happily every day for my fam and friends now with early retirement.

It’s like science, but you can eat it after. 😋

I cooked before I was vegan, but afterward, it’s become a way of exploring dishes and ingredients I never would’ve touched when most of my plate was reliably one of like four meats.

It’s been striking even years later how underexplored my tastes were solely because I trapped myself in the orbit of a few staples. Even eating out, I finally feel adventurous to the extent options exist. I feel profoundly happier cooking nowadays not because I’m freer to do anything (I was always able to try these things) but because I had to try new things and so finally let myself really explore cooking.