As crazy as it sounds (to me), there lived a long span of life when I didn’t cook. I knew how to watch someone else cook and I knew how to heat their leftovers up in a pan, but I was never the one cracking eggs and crying over onions. When people say they can’t cook, what they really mean is that they don’t cook. Cracking the egg and crying over the onion will turn you into the cook. It won’t happen overnight and you’ll have to stomach (or toss the dog) some disappointing meals at first, but you know what? It’s cool to cry over spilled milk. (This is what I tell myself.) Cry over your spilled milk! But then clean it up and try again. (You might need to distance yourself from the kitchen for 12-24 hours, that’s OK.) The silver lining with a shitty dish is that you see (and taste) what went wrong. You were there. You watched it happen. But now, when you make it again, it’ll be great! because you didn’t let the milk spill. Below is a dish I first made seven years ago when I was still trying to convince myself to stay in the kitchen. I made something simple. An asparagus, tomato, and crouton salad. Very delicious, very fresh. It really says: “Hello spring!” (Not that it feels like spring around here.) Seriously though, for your own moral support, sometimes all you need to do is chop something up, throw it into a bowl, dress it, and voila! you’re a cook. Get your ass back in the kitchen.