The Beauty of Cooking

“What do you do during most of the days?” is the question I get a lot these days from my friends. Because of the COVID-19, everyone is self-quarantining and sticks to home rather than going outside, which never happened before. I would define myself as a social butterfly, opposite from a homebody so this situation has given me a lot of stress in the beginning because I didn’t know what to do just inside my home for the whole day. At first, I tried a lot of different things – reading books, working out (exercise), or watching Netflix, but all of a sudden, those things became out of interest to me. Then, a simple idea occurred to me. Why not cook at home?

▲ Ricotta Cheese Salad with strawberries and oranges

#ricotta #ricottacheese #ricottasalad

▲ Cheesy Korean Chicken Feet (Dakbal, 닭발)

#chickenfeet #dakbal

▲ KETO GIMBAP

#gimbap #keto

I started to cook at home, only for me. Usually, I skip breakfast, and by the middle of the day nobody is at home – my mom and dad work out so I am the only one in the house. I could just simply heat the food that my parents had for breakfast, but instead, I wanted to cook new food. It might sound simple, but the procedure is actually quite time-consuming. First, I have to choose which food that I want to have today as lunch. After making up my mind, I have to search on the internet and find out the ingredients needed for cooking. If there are some of the ingredients I don’t keep in my house, I have to go out and buy them. For economic reasons, I prefer to go to 2-3 stores to compare the prices and then make up the final decision. After coming back home, I put out all the ingredients needed and then wash them up, prep up for the first step and then start to cook. I am a type of person that sticks to the recipe, so in every step, I double, triple check the amount of ingredient, cooking time and order to make sure I am doing right. After this whole procedure, I take a picture to celebrate myself and then I can finally start having the first meal of the day. It takes about two hours (sometimes, even 3 hours long) for me, which is a great way to spend time.

▲ Garlic and soy sauced-chicken

#chicken #garlic_chicken

▲ Homemade apple brownies

#brownie #applebrownie

▲ Baguette Garlic bread

#baugette #garlicbread

Great changes I found since I started cooking is that I become more sensitive on every taste of the food I eat. Now that I am aware of the amount of ingredients put in a dish, I could enjoy the food mindfully and eat like a gourmet, which brought me happiness and satisfaction during my meal. Another change that occurred to me was that I am being more and more grateful whenever I am eating. Before, when my mom serves food for me I would just complain and simply say, “it tastes bad!”. Now that I know how hard it is to make the food as good as possible and acknowledge all the efforts needed for the cooking, I appreciate every food that I eat during the day. So for those who feel bored due to self-quarantine, why not try cooking food at home? It will bring you special feelings and new lessons in life! My routine has now changed and before going to bed, I always think of the menu I am going to cook for tomorrow and end my day with delight!

#cooking #life #routine