Start Cooking in Retirement

For those who are looking for things to do in retirement, I would suggest taking another look at cooking.  Now I know many of you have spent a lifetime in the kitchen, but if you start cooking in retirement with a new perspective, it can re-energize your meals and become one of your favorite things to do.  After working for decades and coming home tired with meal preparation facing you, it’s easy to understand how cooking got to be a grind.  But retirement brings a new lifestyle and when you can take the time to learn new things and even prepare foods you never dreamed of making, cooking can become a lot of fun.

My wife has a social calendar that would be the envy of just about anyone and, understandably, she does not look forward to coming home to cook a meal every night.  Over our fifty years of marriage, I have tried my hand at cooking and found out that I actually like to do it if it’s something that I want to make.  I’ve actually gotten a reputation for a couple of my creations and some of them are better than I’ve had in almost any restaurant.  So, you might have noticed two things that I said there.  One was that I like to cook if it’s something that I want to make and second, I said almost any restaurant.  But, having said that, I love to make sauces, and I think my mashed potatoes are as good as anything I’ve had.  I can almost guarantee that, if you start cooking in retirement, you’ll enjoy it more than you expected and you’ll develop your own set of specialties.  I’ve been told my French Bread Pizza is a work of art.

Don’t get me wrong, we still love to eat out.  It’s one of our hobbies.  We do it, however, always thinking about how we would make this at home.  My wife has always been a wonderful cook and people always tell her she should go into the meatball business because hers are really incredible.  Unless it was a weekend, time was always a factor against trying anything elaborate.  Retirement has changed that, and we find ourselves making some wonderful creations and trying to duplicate a particularly good rendition of something that we recently enjoyed in a restaurant.  We’ve gotten serious enough to go to some local cooking classes and we’re always talking about taking more serious course offerings at a local college.  The Culinary Institute of America is about an hour from us, but we haven’t found the courage to undertake that one yet although we enjoy going to their campus restaurants to the work of the students.  If you want to start cooking in retirement, that’s a wonderful motivation.

Start cooking in Retirement and make it a hobby!

We love almost every cuisine and our travels to other countries have been a great inspiration.  France will inspire you to make breads and pastries and Italy will make you determined to master fresh pasta or home-made pizza.  A pizza night with friends is as good an evening as you can have and when you serve an appetizer of your own seafood ravioli you will get compliments like you wouldn’t believe.  I’ve noticed the “dough” concept runs through a number of cuisines because you have Asian dumplings and shumai, Polish pierogi and empanadas from Mexico.  Each of them is distinct and they’re all fun to make.  If you start cooking in retirement, you’ll find your courage and desire increasing until one day you’re researching recipes and buying ingredients.

If you’re a little tight on money, cooking in retirement can actually save you some money.  If you have dietary concerns, you’ll also be able to take better control of the food that you eat and come out healthier in the long run.  We have found that, as we grow older, the restaurant portions seem to be getting bigger.  It’s no wonder that you’ll see a lot of seniors taking advantage of early bird specials and leaving with a bag of leftovers.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I’m also the first to say that you don’t have to be a purist.  If you start cooking in retirement, don’t let anyone talk you out of getting something frozen and then “fixing it up” the way you like it.  When something calls for a tomato sauce, I’ve been known to use our favorite sauce out of a jar and add some sauteed onions or garlic along with some fresh basil.  I always get compliments, and no one guesses my secret.  Most importantly, it tastes as good as you get in many restaurants.  Start cooking in retirement and come up with your own list of specialties but, if your French bread pizza is better than mine, please send me the recipe.  Why not give it a try and start having some fun in the kitchen?  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

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