Cooking In Retirement Can Be Fun
It may be hard for some people to believe, but cooking in retirement can be fun. A lot of fun. You now have the time to try new things and enjoy dining with friends and family to the fullest. Thinking back to our working days, the last thing my wife wanted to do when she got home from work was prepare an intricate meal. She was a Special Education teacher for younger children and by the end of the day she was pretty much exhausted. In my time at Corporate America, I used to get home after she did unless I was traveling. The last thing either one of us wanted to do was cook. I sometimes would get inspired on the weekends to make dinner but, truthfully, not too often. The amazing thing is that we both love to eat and appreciate different foods. When the children went off on their own, we started to eat out more and our Friday night dates were something to look forward to.
When we both retired, we made an amazing discovery. Cooking in retirement can be fun. We love to travel, and those experiences have become great inspiration for some wonderful meals. Trying to duplicate a salad dressing or barbecue sauce has become a great pastime. And we have found that it is a great way to make the food dollars go further. Dining out is fun but it can also be expensive. The challenge is to make something at home as good as if you had gotten it in a good restaurant. Believe it or not, you can do that. Cooking in retirement can be fun especially with the products and services that are available today.
Sometimes it almost seems like they invent new foods. We’re exposed to vegetables, produce and spices that weren’t available when we were younger. I love pizza. It’s been a favorite of mine ever since I was a child and it’s still one of my favorite meals. The varieties of pizza that are around today is mind boggling and, when you can buy a pizza oven for your home, you know the world has come a long way in terms of convenience. We make sourdough pizza on a regular basis and it’s as good as anything you can find in a restaurant. Cooking in retirement can be fun. And you can become an expert if you want to. That’s what I appreciate most about retirement. You can do whatever inspires you and do it until you get tired of it. We have found that we go in spurts with cooking. We get very intense when we find something we want to duplicate and then we back off for a bit. We start to eat out again or travel for the winter or go on a trip somewhere. We get inspired by some new dishes and then we’re back in the kitchen again.
Our Travel Experiences Have Shown Us That Cooking In Retirement Can Be Fun
It seems like the world of cooking is exploding. There is no shortage of cooking shows and equipment to keep you engaged in bringing some excitement to meal preparation. Julia Child should be smiling down from heaven when she sees all the things that she helped inspire. We still use her cookbooks as well as the dozens of others that we have. When you think of all the categories that surround cookbooks and meal preparation, you realize that you can find a recipe for just about anything. And you don’t have to buy a cookbook either. One simple search for a recipe online and you will find dozens of suggestions for whatever topic you’re looking for. If it’s a cuisine you’re interested in, just do a search on a country and you’ll find a recipe. Remember when Italian, French and Mexican used to hold the monopoly on recipes? They’re still the biggest along with Asian cuisine but take a look into what’s available now. You start to look for Italian, for example, and you’ll be directed to Northern, Sicilian, Tuscan and many others with pizza and pasta having individual categories as well. It’s amazing what’s available and it’s what makes cooking fun in retirement.
If you want an easy way to start exploring this wonderful hobby, there are a few things to try. A meal preparation service is a good place to start. There are companies that will ship everything you need to cook a meal and all the instructions you need to complete the process. If you’re even less adventurous than that, there are companies that ship the meal already prepared and you just have to warm it up. While that may not actually qualify as cooking, it’s a way to get quality food at a lower cost than a restaurant and try new recipes that you may not feel qualified to make such as Beef Wellington. With a little practice, you’ll be able to make some fairly complex recipes.
If you’re really serious about cooking, you can find a number of instructional videos online and even classes to take. There are courses that are devoted to a particular cuisine, and they’ll provide step by step preparation instructions. There’s nothing like having people rave about something you made in the kitchen. I think you’ll find that cooking in retirement can be fun. Give it a try. It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!
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