Cooking At Home Matters!

Kyle Speers, December 2023

“I don’t have the time”, “I don’t know any recipes”, “I can’t cook anything”, “I don’t enjoy it”… These are some of the excuses I have heard from my peers about why they don’t cook at home. I am here to tell them (and all of you) that you do have the time.

The 45 minutes to an hour you’re waiting for the take out to be delivered? You could have cooked it, and, in most cases, cooked it better. Recipes? We have years of recipes on our website that you could follow, and they are EASY. You CAN cook things, if my little brother can figure out how to pan sear a ribeye correctly, you can do anything. Don’t enjoy it? Well that is because you haven’t had the right experience yet.

This holiday season I would like to challenge you all to think about that one thing at the table you have always loved. Grandma’s pot roast, some mashed potatoes, deviled eggs maybe? Find that one thing and find the chef in your life responsible for making it. Pick their brain. Why is this the dish you make every year? The answers may surprise you, and they may rekindle a spark to want to recreate the memories that surround food and the holidays. Better yet, cook it with whoever normally does it. Put some music on, tell stories, and maybe have a glass of wine! I am certainly not here to judge.

I don’t have just one recipe for you this month. Instead I have a request. Think about that one dish, that one relative, the one holiday memory that sticks in your mind about this time of year, and go recreate it. This is the time of year where great memories are made, and then too often forgotten. Keep the memories and traditions alive this year, teach a child how to make something, it will stick with them forever. Bond with your parent or grandparent or weird aunt and uncle, they tend to have the best stories anyway. Just keep it simple, avoid the hot button topics, smile, relax and have fun. And if you feel the urge to share a story with us, drop an email to Kyle@tomdwyer.com. I would love to hear what makes your holidays special!