Since the very genesis of life on earth, humans are the only sentient beings that have been able to cook, capturing and harnessing the awesome force that is fire. And beyond the flame, the gradual implementations of agriculture, animal husbandry, and food preservation have been monumental human achievements that have provided for increased food availability and diversity.

Our ability to walk into a market and have the gustatory world at our finger tops is a uniquely human advantage. Yet so many choose to regularly relinquish that privilege, continually condemning themselves to a hopeless, unfulfilling life of cardboard cuisine: pantries filled with boxes containing a litany of powdered this and modified that. And just how long has that Salisbury Steak been buried in the cold, glaciated depths of the freezer anyway?

Are we blissfully indifferent or do we force ourselves to stay unaware? When the ingredient list on your dinner starts to look less like an actual recipe and more closely resembles some faceless food scientist's angry, repressed wet dream, a line must be drawn. If our dinners involve the words "remove plastic film" or "empty contents of packet," we have to acknowledge one simple fact: we are NOT cooking well.

(I'm painfully aware of the tightrope I'm walking, teetering between making a valid point and coming off as a preachy, elitist douche. You're right; I have no idea what it's like to be a single parent working two jobs AND having to get dinner ready for the kids, who melt into three-headed daemons should something other than dinosaur-shaped chicken fingers happen upon their TV trays. But we must make an effort.)

So, why cook well? Well, because we can. Because we owe it to ourselves. I mean, we've got the opposable thumbs that made it all possible. (Sorry, monkey. A banana is great, but Bananas Foster is infinitely better.) And cooking well doesn't have to be difficult; it has nothing to do with the cost or number of ingredients used. To the contrary, I've found the best meals of my life to be exercises in restraint, most humble in their creation.

In fact, the very essence of cooking well boils down to a simple collaboration: an idea whipped up somewhere between our stomach and heart, catalyzed by a spark of imagination that funnels down to our most precious kitchen tool -- our fingers. It is those aforementioned opposable thumbs which allow us to properly wield a chef's knife, maneuver a sandy pinch of salt, and feverishly shake a cast iron pan -- transforming an otherwise lifeless skillet into a veritable dance floor, sending sizzling mirepoix leaping up into a culinary tours en l'air.

A marriage of a few simple, delicately seasoned ingredients, thoughtfully combined in the comfort of our home is perhaps the greatest gift we can give to ourselves. By cooking well, we are keeping the flame alive for future generations, and paying proper reverence to the evolutionary eon that has afforded us this sacred hedonistic handiness.