How many of us tried to become chefs after watching Ratatouille as children? 

All of us, we bet. It was such a lovely movie, and it made the idea of cooking sound so romantic that suddenly, 8-year-old us decided that was going to be our career path. Sadly, for many of us, that dream didn’t last very long. 

Cooking is an art: it requires skill, patience, practice, and passion. We may feel the passion (a few days a year at least), but most of the time we lack skill and practice. Patience was never in our vocabulary to begin with. 

We wish we could become famous chefs, mixing ingredients, trying new flavors, and coming up with the most delicious and unexpected combinations. Granted, we wouldn’t bring any rodents into our kitchens, so we would have to figure it out by ourselves. Who says that chocolate can’t be covered with tomato sauce? Yeah, that’s why no one lets us get in the kitchen.

Let’s face it, no matter how romantic the idea of cooking sounds, we’re not all cut out for it. Some people have the talent and the skill to do it flawlessly… And the rest of us just manage to let everything get burnt in the oven. Getting takeout is easier anyway. Besides, cooking is a lot of work. Coming up with something to prepare is just the tip of the iceberg. You have to go buy the ingredients, then chop everything, throw it in the pan, and make sure it doesn’t burst into flames. Having it taste good is another completely different skill. Let’s just take one step at a time and start by being able to follow a recipe without making the house burn down. 

We still have a lot of room for improvement, and we can learn to cook well and become home chefs if we get enough practice hours in. We can start with something easy and escalate from there. We’ll be able to make that fluffy soufflé eventually, but let’s just give it a couple of years… 

In the meantime, we can laugh at ourselves and our poor kitchen skills with this kitchen full of memes. Next time, we’ll have everything figured out and laugh out of happiness at our success while preparing dinner for everybody!