Operation Feed Self
The Story
For those of you following the DGR Twitter feed, you are probably aware (whether you care to be or not) of my summer decree: learn to feed self. Seriously, it’s like I just moved out of my parents house. I realize how juvenile it may sound, but 12 years of living alone and working hours that almost never allow for a self-prepared meal make for some pretty stupid eating habits. Fortunately, my job provides some down time in the summer, which I will use this year in what will surely be an embarrassing, if not exciting, attempt to learn how to cook. And I mean REALLY cook.
Of course, there is the running joke on the Robot Panic site about me asking John how to cook SpaghettiOs in college. Sadly, while slightly misrepresented (barely), it is mostly true… entirely. Since that time, I had learned to make my own pasta noodles, ravioli, various sauces, seafood, etc., but those are extremely time intensive meals that only appear for special occasions. In the meantime, I was throwing away piles of produce that I couldn’t eat before it went bad and stocking up on processed food (because it lasted forever), which is terrible for your health. After spending some time with a few people who genuinely cared about their food, I began to develop an appreciation for eating better and also noticing the general benefits that followed: higher energy levels, improved physical health, etc.
All that aside, I have begun with a few new tools and am about five weeks into my little, but increasingly expensive experiment. Fortunately, it’s worth every penny. Probably by a factor of ten, if I can keep it going. So far, I am very much enjoying the change of pace and loving the results. The first purchases were the following:
