I’ve recently gotten pretty into cooking. Now, I’m trying to get better at planning and cooking meals. Honestly, I think cooking might be my perfect hobby as someone who is both creative and immensely logic-driven.

I tend to fixate on hobbies, buy a bunch of crap to do them (looking at you, pom-pom maker, scrapbooking supplies, and bottles of paint in the corner of my office). But then I don’t do them, even though I was excited.

And I think I cracked the code! I don’t do them because … why? I don’t have a ton of free time and the time I do have I don’t want to spend doing something that, at its core, is kind of useless. (Listen, not everything in life needs to be useful or productive but this is how my brain works.)

But cooking? It’s a task I have to do because I have to eat food. Except, I can make it feel more fun and special and cool and I can be creative. I can learn useful skills — as nice as it is to know how to make pom-poms, being able to dice vegetables has been handier lately.

Plus, cooking gives me a result I can do something with (eat!) and share with others (eat!).

So, here are some of my tips for my fellow 20somethings who are trying to get into cooking or, at the very least, are trying to get better at planning and cooking meals. Because sometimes a handful of Cheerios and spoonfuls of peanut butter don’t cut it.

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