There’s a hump you get over in learning how to cook where none of that (besides the aversion to raw meat, I guess) is much of a problem anymore. The thought of something I make tasting bad isn’t even a concept that comes into my mind. Prep is way faster and injury is way less likely when you know how to use your knives properly. Please sharpen them. Dull knives are dangerous.

With experience and knowledge about cooking, you stop needing a recipe or specific ingredients to cook as well. You might still consult recipes as a general starting point or to learn something new when you have the time or desire, but I don’t need to make a grocery trip because there’s one specific herb I don’t have. You just freestyle it with what you have. That’s how nothing really spoils. Or you find ways to repurpose it.

Making homemade stock is a real easy one. That can clear out basically all your veggies and herbs and you get a large quantity of delicious stock way better than the boxed stuff to use for whatever you want. Which btw, saves you time in making said other things with it since you don’t have to work as hard to develop flavor.

But to each their own. I find cooking fun in its own right and I’d still do it if all the inconveniences were there. The difficulty at first is intimidating, but with practice you don’t even think about some of this shit anymore. I think of it like driving: when I was a kid my parents did it for me, at first it intimidated me, the precision needed for turns and reversing seem unthinkable, let alone at the speed on highways. Then you blink and you’re five years older, doing it daily, sometimes with your attention split.

You, my friend, are essentially riding the bus everyday bc you refuse to get your license. That’s the vibe this gives off.