This was the question puzzling neuroscientist and food writer Darya Rose, PhD, author of Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting, and blogger behind the award-winning SummerTomato.com. But she finally discovered the culprit: recipes. “When you don’t cook regularly and you decide to try a new recipe, you take a long list of ingredients to the store,” Rose explains. “You wander around the aisles looking for everything you need. You struggle through the recipe, which takes a lot of time because you’re constantly having to read and make sure you’re doing everything correctly. Every single one of these things adds stress and frustration to the cooking process. No wonder you don’t do this very often.” MORE: The Easiest Way To Roast Butternut Squash So Rose developedFoodist Kitchen , an online course that teaches 100% recipe-free cooking. Through daily email lessons, students pick up basic knife and cooking skills, learn how to shop for exactly the right amount of ingredients (no more half-onions or wilted herbs in the trash!), and discover how to plan meals intuitively. At the end of a month, she says, cooking will no longer be that once-in-a-while struggle that makes you want to throw your hands up and grab a TV dinner. It will be a stress-free daily habit to keep for life. MORE: How To Cut A Whole Chicken Into 8 Pieces And Rose knows that it works—because she used to dread cooking, too. “I know that anyone can learn to cook without recipes, because I did,” she says. “When I was in college I was such a terrible cook that I once burned water—no joke. And it took me an entire afternoon to learn how to boil eggs. Nobody is born a chef, and everyone can learn to cook with practice.” Up for the challenge? Enrollment in Foodist Kitchen is always open, and the 30-day course costs $99.
