Cooking is Hard

Disagree. "Access to..." and "ability to..." do NOT equal LIKE to...If someone doesn't LIKE to cook and chooses to use that as an excuse to NOT eat healthy, then they are making a decision. There are lots of things I don't LIKE to do, but I do them anyway, for my benefit.

I understand how it's hard for some people to cook, even if they are following a recipe. It's hard to just follow steps without any context. Sometimes understanding a technique can help you cook more intuitively. If you understand the principals behind some basic cooking methods (broiling, braising, frying), a few base recipes (i.e. how to make a roux), and basic knowledge of which flavors tend to pair well together (pork with apples, fish with lemon, cilantro with everything (haha! j/k)) you'll have some fundamentals to build on. I learned all these things mostly by reading cookbooks. Julia Child, Thomas Keller, and Nigella Lawson all have wonderfully narrative cookbooks that can help build this knowledge base. Then just try something! You may fail, but if you do, try to figure out where it went wrong and learn from it. Cooking can be a really fun, creative process and will improve your life AND your health.

I'm a pretty damned good cook if I do say so myself, but I've come to learn a few things by watching (and eating food cooked by) people who "can't cook". Disclaimer: My ex-wife and her family are the main inspiration for these tidbits.

1) They are afraid to improvise or even eyeball ingredients.

One of the things I make that her family liked the most was a simple meatloaf. There is nothing magical about meatloaf and there are no hard set rules. Type of meat? Your choice. Hell, mix 2 or 3 for all I care. Seasonings? Whatever you have on hand. My ex's sister asked me for my recipe once, I told her that I couldn't give it to her. At first she was a little huffy and made a crack about it being a "family secret" or something. I told her no, it wasn't a secret, it just didn't exist. She couldn't grasp the idea that it is possible to cook without following a recipe to the letter.

2) They are afraid to try anything new.

As pointed out here already, cooking takes practice. You fell off that bicycle a few times before you learned how to ride, you're going to burn a few dishes or have recipes that simply don't work for you. It happens, it's no big deal. Well, unless the fire department shows up. *Then* it's a big deal. My example here is salmon. Again, my ex's family loved the way I made salmon and despite the fact that I showed everyone involved several times how to cook it, I always ended up being the one to prepare dinner. My "recipe"? Lightly dust with flour (and I do mean lightly), pan over medium heat with 1T real butter and 1T olive oil, salmon goes in skin side up for 2 minutes, flip, and into a 350-ish oven for 4-5 more minutes. Again, no magic.

3) They tend to eat their food without actually tasting it, and/or have an aversion to the idea that some spices need to be added *during* the cooking process.

Especially salt. I understand that you don't want to go overboard on salt if you have certain medical conditions, but salt is absolutely crucial in most recipes. I'm not Alton Brown, so I won't go into the in's and out's of why, but that bland chicken that seems to be on the table at every potluck/holiday dinner/family reunion? I can almost guarantee you that the person responsible for it either doesn't eat their own cooking or has gotten used to cooking for someone on a restricted diet and went way overboard.

But it's not just that. The first time you cook a new recipe, take some extra time eating it. You and you alone know what you like. If it needs more or less of something already listed, make a note. If you're eating it and suddenly think "I bet some cheddar cheese would make this even better" by all means, add it the next time! As you add new spices to your collection and get to know what they do, go back and revisit some old standbys and see about jazzing them up a little.

Cooking is an art. Approaching it as a cold, sterile scientific process will get you edible food, but nothing else. Color outside of the lines, sing off key, make up your own rules. But for goodness sake, just have fun with it. In the immortal words of Nadia G., "It ain't rocket surgery."