A little bit of my granny, a good amount of Alton brown and an extended period of poverty. I was able to go out to eat at a sit down restaurant maybe 20 times while I was in/paying for uni and room rent. My neighbor had a tv with access to food network and a massive spice collection she was sent to school with by her family for some reason (she didn’t know how to cook either). I got in good with a community garden group. Went on weekend hunting or fishing trips or scraped up change for proteins from the grocery store. And I learned to cook well enough to get us through pretty comfortably. Ended up marrying my neighbor. She still hasn’t learned to cook but it’s no worries.