On another front, I've been experimenting with the art of home cooking. For nearly my entire adult life, it was just easy and convenient to go out for dinner or buy something from a fast food joint.
The last 5 years or so has really forced me to re-think my eating habits (health reasons). And so I started preparing home meals and eventually got to like it. Most of the time though, the Missus prepare meals at home, or we'd eat with my parents and my mom would do the cooking. But I've actually gotten very proficient at certain cuisines.
Sometimes we would be at a restaurant and order something expensive, and my first thought would be "I can do this at home and do it better." But with a full time job, family obligations, and expensive and time consuming hobbies, cooking from scratch is something that I can't do regularly. So we continue to eat out, or at my parent's house, because it's easy and convenient.
Occasionally I'd fire up the oven to make something, and the end result is usually pretty spectacular (at least to my taste buds). Knowing I can do certain dishes as good as the best restaurants or my mom, I take certain pride in doing it, I feel rewarded when I cook it, and I am rewarded when I eat it. But it does take time, preparation, and manual labor...But boy howdy, every time I cook, it just taste BETTER knowing I made it from scratch.
It's like that switching between autos and manuals. I've driven manuals my entire adult life, and currently there's 2 manuals and 2 autos in the stable. I take the auto mostly because they're the two convenient cars (seat more than 2), but whenever I need to go somewhere by myself I always take the MZ4 Coupe or the Corvette, because frankly? I like to shift myself, and I am damn proficient at it.
