Welcome, lovers of cooking, food or the hit Disney film Ratatouille!

The beautiful thing in common with us, dear readers, is that we all need to eat (except you, Chat GPT, but you can’t cook either, so move along). Like me, you’ve all probably found yourself in the kitchen, staring longingly at the fridge and hoping the iridescent sparkle of dust and mysterious saucy stains might grant you a) an idea of what to make for dinner, and b) the energy necessary to cook it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love cooking. My summer was abuzz with little adventures down to Thriftys to grab that night’s ingredients, followed by glorious evenings concocting my latest foodie find. After a day of work or school, though, I find it hard to push myself into yet another time consuming task. If I walk in the door after 5pm and there are no leftovers in sight, I’m usually just as happy to eat some toast and blackberry jam. This semester, however, I’m going to challenge the narrative lazy evenings have recently confined me to. Good, home cooked food is one of the best forms of comfort in my opinion, and with the semester ahead, a little extra joy goes a long way.

My Learning Plan

My grand plan is to try out new recipes each week to improve my culinary skills and add a better variety to my cookbook. Each week I intend to create a new dish, drawing on recipes from my friends, coworkers and the internet at large for gastronomical inspiration. I’ll start off with a few easier dishes before diving outside my comfort zone, and my final post will capture my valiant struggles to conquer my arch-nemesis in terms of recipes: pancakes. Seventeen years of cooking have not yet granted me the wisdom necessary to make this common breakfast food successfully, but after acquiring nine weeks worth of cooking skills, I might just have a chance at the sweet taste of victory. Fluffy, fully-cooked victory.

Zazzy’s getting back in the kitchen! Stick around to find out how it goes.

Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash