So, when writing became my job, I had to ask: “then what’s my hobby?” Well, though I am a big fan of Hearthstone and I obviously read a ton and watch many shows—when I have time to do so—if I had to pick something I consider a hobby, it would be cooking.

To not die of hunger, I must cook food anyway—or eat out at restaurants all the time, but, if that were only the case, I would not make it as complex as I do. If I was only doing it for the sake of not being a withered husk of hunger, I would not put the level of thought and effort into the foods I make.

It’s hard for me to believe, even if it is true, that I could not cook until like two years ago. I gained the ability when my mother decided that if I was going to eat healthy, I should know how to make the healthy food I wanted to have. And, from there, came experimentation.

And that’s my favorite part of the whole process, that’s the thing that really jazzes me up and makes me excited: the experimentation. The blending of tastes to see how they play out and settle.

I do not look up recipes. Only once I checked online for help on how to cook a pork chop properly. All my other, now signature, dishes were entirely invented by me.

And, yeah, oh sure have there been blunders in the pursuit of good food. I once tried to make a meatloaf with no wheat or other thickeners. It became a crumple that sort of worked with rice pasta, but that was about the best I could get. Recently I messed up and used cinnamon on turkey when I meant chili powder. I have an awful habit of burning bacon.

But, even with some truly silly mistakes (and in some cases genuinely dangerous errors) at the end of the day, I love it. Multiple dishes cooking at once, the sputter of splashing a sauce onto meat as it heats—I adore this artform. The knowledge that what I am eating, what I am enjoying, came from my skill, my creativity, is a sensation hard not to appreciate.

I hate reading my own writing—all I can see are the flaws—but no one, not even a gourmet restaurant, can make food I will like as much as what I can make for myself, at least not that I’ve found.

It may be too rich, too intense, too spicy for someone else.

But it’s mine.

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Special thanks to: Bob Gerkin, Collin Pearman, Dylan Alexander, Jerry Banfield, and Michael The Comic Nerd. 

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