Picking the right ingredients!

Of the actual cooking lessons provided here, this is the one you really need to remember.  No one cares if you eat boxed mac and cheese 5 nights a week, in your underwear, out of the pan, in your living room, while drinking "beer", as long as you are the only one involved.  

If you think this type of behavior will ever get you friends, a girlfriend/boyfriend, anything other than the scorn of your peers, you are sorely mistaken.  If it does, write a book, because apparently the rest of us are doing it wrong.  Quality food, like the type you are trying to make for this and any other particular meals, requires quality ingredients.  Exactly none of the ingredients you use to make these meals can be substituted with MSG, boxed things, vegetables that come from cans, or frozen to preserve freshness vegetable medleys.  These things only qualify as food in emergencies.  

Open In Emergency.......... that involves at least 10 zombies.

In fact, half the stuff in them is not actually food.  On this same note, you are not allowed to prepare any of these meals with things you find at a store with a name that rhymes with “Doll-Part”.  This is not an anti-giant corporation thing, it’s a quality thing.  If they had a quality food section at any point in their history, it set itself on fire.  This is not to say you have to seek out your local farmer for each and every vegetable.  We don’t actually expect you to get to know the cow, pig, or any other animal you are about to turn into food.  You can if you want, but getting to know the animal you are going to eat seems a little too Hannibal Lecter.  What we’re going for here is quality.  Think about your perfect mate for a minute.  Perfect mates are usually not full of artificial ingredients, they are perfect straight from the.......... farm?  They aren’t too small, too large, or too full of genetic modifications either.  They are fresh, firm, and taste good (If they don’t, leave.  Say nothing, just stand up and leave).  Vegetables work the same way.  “Doll-Part” vegetables are injected with scary things that you probably don’t want to eat.  Cheap, untrustworthy vegetables should be looked at like a Lindsay Lohan.  

Not a food.

They might look good from a distance, but you probably wouldn’t like them in real life.  They are too big, feel waxy, and are an insult to all that is holy about ……… food?  Vegetables?  I’m getting side tracked.  The point is, your average grocery store works fine.  If they have an organic section, great!  If not, that’s okay too.  As long as your ingredients are not engineered, rather than grown, you’re probably in the clear. 

Before

After

With all that having been said, get the good stuff and use it just right.  You are trying to have a decent meal here, and hopefully more than once in your life, so follow the instructions and you’ll be fine.