Cooking is Terrible Kindle Edition

This isn’t The Joy of Cooking or How to Cook Everything or even those recipes that Bon Appetit claims are easy. This book has a very specific target demographic and that demographic is people who occasionally or frequently fail at feeding themselves. Some people can’t imagine that, and this book is not for them. But if you spend a lot of time on deadline, have run out of cope by the time dinner rolls around every day, forget to eat when you’re working on something, and/or just actually hate cooking despite how terribly trendy it is...this book is for you.

This book is delightfully straightforward, not to mention free of the moral judgements that we like to hand out about people who opt out of cooking in North America. (You know, a lot of countries have shops all over that sell cheap, tasty, and healthy prepared food, so it’s not like we HAVE to be like this, but I digress.) There’s no implication that you’re somehow less worthy for not wanting to cook or for using prepared ingredients. There’s no recipe-blog-style reading through hundreds of lines of quirky domestic backstory here, either, and no talk of “guilty pleasures” or “sometimes foods.” Fletcher trusts you to figure out what you’re willing and able to eat by yourself, which I really appreciate.

I’d particularly recommend this for people who sometimes find themselves too thoroughly exhausted to even decide what to eat. (And also for feeding a partner when they are too tired/depressed/sick/etc. to figure out what they want.) Fletcher is there to talk you through it, like a particularly good Tumblr friend. I mean, I’m pretty always up for Dips That Are Meals, for example. Right? Or if not, Things on Toast. It’s not that I necessarily need *recipes* for these, but there are times when I desperately need someone else to come up with a suggested combination of things.

These recipes aren’t aimed at any particular diet; there aren’t a lot of meat-based recipes, though. The author leaves it to you to decide whether and how you want to make a recipe vegetarian or diabetic-friendly or gluten-free or whatever (or go the other way and load up a recipe with cream cheese and bacon). In my experience, most people who need those variations have their own preferred way of doing things. If you’re a beginner to a restricted diet, you should probably get familiar with basic substitution and cooking methods first.

Anyway, look, this book is a for a very specific type of cooking. If it’s what you need, then you should definitely get it. This book is my new bff; in fact, I’d be here for a sequel. The only thing that could make this book better would be a random recipe chooser.

Or dont have time, energy or spoons...

Its not a cookbook, per se, but suggestions for things you can make to feed the body when the soul is tired.
This book gives you permission to care for yourself, feed yourself with without judgement and in this day and age, I think that's important.

It reminds me a lot of how I felt the first time I read How to Cook A Wolf, by MFK Fisher and that alone is worth you checking this out.

Look, I got depression. Most days I'm fine. But some days it's a struggle to eat at all. This book is great for meal ideas on days where I can't find the strength to brush my teeth. Also pro tip: Chia seeds are high in fiber and contain iron. Just sprinkle it on whatever!

For those of us who sometimes just need to eat a food--a quick, simple, uncomplicated food, this cookbook is perfect. Fletcher's tone is wry, funny, and understanding of those of us who don't have the time or energy for complicated cooking or long food blogger remembrances of granny's authentic recipes. She gets right to the point in a way that can really dispense with a lot of the stress many people feel about cooking. Well worth the low price just for the asides about how "future you" can prepare and freeze some items in advance or use other items in multiple ways. I will definitely be using this book when I'm out of ideas and/or time!

Buy this book if you're a college student who needs easy meal options, if you're newly living alone and aren't good at feeding yourself, if you don't have access to a lot of kitchen equipment, if depression or other mental issues interfere with your ability to feed yourself, or if you're so tired and/or busy that you forget to eat / don't feel like you have time to think about food. Buy this book as a gift for anyone in one of the above categories. This isn't a book that wants to teach you how to make healthy foods from scratch or live on $1 a day, but it is a book that wants to keep you alive and help you get enough fuel inside your body to keep you going until such time as you CAN do the healthy fresh foods, and it will give you some better options to do that than you can probably come up with on your own if you fall into any of the above categories.

Also, it will tell you how long the food you do prepare according to its recipes stays safe and good in the fridge, which I wish every cookbook would do.

Misha Fletcher is a cooking genius. Contrary to what the author says in-book, Cooking is Terrible is an incredibly authentic cookbook. Narrated with an endearing everything-is-awful-and-you-don't-have-to-eat-this-if-you-don't-want-to parlance, it contains recipes that are clever, versatile, and healthier than I had any reason to expect in a cookbook marketed as "quick and easy." My parents, who raised me on a diet of boxed pasta and canned meat, could have used a book like Cooking is Terrible. In an age where Americans are struggling just to get by, this book offers permission to care about yourself and your diet without the burden of judgement if you don't slave away in the kitchen. Highly recommended.

These are more of suggestions than recipes, but if you're like me and end up eating a lot of cereal because coming up with food is hard, this book is wonderful. Also it's irreverent, which is good. Buy it and bookmark favorites for the no-brain days.

For a disabled fridge goblin like myself this book is a treasure. I know that I can typically combine things and end up with an edible thing, but knowing which combinations are tasty together is invaluable so I don’t end up just making myself sicker. I’m planning on using some precious meat and avocado money to buy this book for some friends so we can all continue this unfair grind of forcing nutrients into our bodies multiple times a day.