Why Do I Love Cooking…The Four F's

There are many reasons to love cooking. I boil (pun intended) my favorites down to four, all beginning with F:

1. Fun: Cooking is not just something that we have to do in order to eat on a daily basis. It can be fun too! Think about when you bake a cake, who doesn't love to lick the frosting off the bowl? Or when you're mixing all the ingredients together to make cookies, choosing whether to put chocolate chips, raisins, almonds, walnuts, coconut, dried cranberries, or M&M's into the bowl. There are endless opportunities to have fun while you're cooking...and then you get to eat!

2. Friends: Cooking with friends makes the whole experience infinitely better. It's always more fun to cook while chatting, listening to music, or just being with someone else. And sometimes it makes things go more quickly, so you can eat sooner! Making food is an enriching experience, and who better to share it with than your friends.

3. Family: Cooking is one of those activities that can bring a whole family together. Everyone can participate, from the mother and father working diligently on the main dish, the grandmother whipping up the dessert with the help of her grandkids, who are stirring the ingredients and licking the sides of the bowl, and the aunts and uncles watching over the steaming side dishes. It is an experience that can be shared by the entire family.

4. Food: What would cooking be without the food?! The joy of cooking is that you can make whatever you want, whenever you want, for whomever you want. You can make the food spicy, savory, sweet, or sultry. You can boil it, steam it, broil it, bake it or flambé it. You can serve it raw, medium rare, a la mode, on ice or on fire. There are so many choices of food, endless tastes and flavors that can be mixed together to satisfy those who will eat anything to those with a refined palette. And the best thing about cooking is that right after you have food to eat!

Cooking does not have to be a chore. It can be an enjoyable experience that is fun, with friends and/or family and good food.