This year I’ll have to learn how to cook.

It’s a bit embarrassing, but at my age, to gain more independence and spend less, I’ll have to put on my chef hat and apron and destroy a few meals while I curate my cooking skills.

It’s a topic that makes me cringe whenever I think about it. I often feel nervous and fearful as if I’m entering a cooking competition with seasoned chefs, and the security will find out, any moment now, that I cannot cook.

It’s as if I’ll be thrown out of the competition, prosecuted and sentenced to cooking jail.

My extended family, whom I grew up with, were extremely anal about the kitchen. They were perfectionists in life, and as such, to me, it always felt like making perfect meals were mandatory and a job only for experts.

Luckily, this meant that I had to stay out of the kitchen, for I was no cook, neither was I an expert.

It stuck with me that I shouldn’t bother myself to learn how to cook because I wasn’t going to master it like my perfectionists’ family did.

They hadn’t directly taught me those ideals but that is what I learnt indirectly.

Nowadays, when I tell people that I cannot cook and that I work to afford my ready-made meals, I’m telling a half-truth.

I really want to learn to cook and not have to spend so much money on eating out.

I’m not yet sure where to start, but I intend to face the full by the horn without pressuring myself too much.

Googling a recipe is easy, but cooking up a tantalising dish is another thing.

The big issue is learning how to cook but the bigger issue is managing my internal narrative.

I know this feat begs me to be aware of my internal narrative, which will be nothing short of perfectionism. But I’ll remind myself that the goal isn’t for me to be a perfect chef but to learn how to cook my meals.

Perhaps I should start with an indigenous, Jamaican, boiled saltfish with Okra and boiled Green Bananas?

Or a classic and straightforward American breakfast of fried bacon with scrambled eggs, cheese and bagels?

Let me know.

I’ll keep you posted on this cooking journey.