The first step to recovery...

...is to admit you have a problem, right?

So, I definetly have a problem. Admitting this to myself is actually much harder than I ever thought it would be.

I can't cook. Anything. Or bake. Anything.

This is completely embarrassing for a number of reasons.

1. I'm 22 years old (almost 23!) and I really have not aquired any useful cooking or baking skills. Well, at least not any skills beyond boiling a pot of water to make KD or picking up the phone to order a pizza. 23 years is AMPLE time to know how to put a meal together and have it be nurishing and delicious.
2. I come from a big, fat Italian family. There are generations of women in my family who make the most amazingly delicious meals from the simplest of ingredients. The recipe for my Nonna's pasta sauce was brought over to Canada and passed on to my mother (who pulls it off flawlessly). I don't even know where to start. I am rethinking this order...this should have been embarrassment number one!! I am putting my family to shame with my pitiful culinary skills!
3. When my mom isn't around to make some dinner for her and I... well that's when I really eat the worst. I'll grab the quickest snack that usually isn't nutritional in any way. Yea, that's right. My mom makes me dinner and when she's not around I eat like crap. My mind is going now to those Interventionists on that A&E show. When trying to get an addict into rehab they always say that the person has to hit a "rock-bottom" before they will be willing to change. I might as well make my own rock bottom and be completely honest!!

So there it is. The big, ugly truth.

But this can't be the end for me, can it?! Will my life 5 years from now involve take-out, drive-thru's and *shutter TV-Dinners??! There has to be hope for me!

The change has to happen now, I think. I have done enough damage to my culinary imagination- It's time to give her a work out and get those wheels turning!

*screeeecccch

Hmm, just a little rusty? lol

I'd like to have some goals for myself. Some specific checkpoints that I would like to be able to complete and say "Hey, I can do this now. Booyah!." Plus I'm a totally goal oriented person and I also enjoy checking things off of lists. I dunno why. Like whenever I make a list of things to do, I always write something on the list that I have already completed, just so I can check it off. So yea.

Ultimate Goal : to be able to create an entire menu, from appetizer to entree and sides to dessert. The meal should be nutricious to a point but more importantly it has to be delicious and totally made by me.

I want to try one recipe a week (to start out) and gain more skills and knowledge through experience. I know that I need more confidence in the kitchen and the only way to gain that is by practising. I am really going to have to push myself to commit myself to this journey but I want to transform myself. Going into my second year off from school, I said at the start of this break that I would spend this time working on me. I feel that I have grown so much in this time and learned so much about myself. This is one more notch in my belt. Well not yet, but it will be. Hopefully

-Cass