cooking for fun

I have never been the kind of person who could be depended on to cook dinner and put it on the table every day, as evidenced by the large number of dinners-for-one that consisted of gummy candy or stale cookies, but I do like to cook as a hobby, rather than as a necessity. There is something simultaneously exciting, soothing, and satisfying about finding a new recipe, deciding on small improvements, looking for the ingredients, and trying to make the final product resemble the intended dish, although never within the estimated amount of time. Even better if I'm cooking for the next day, so that there's no pressure to finish in order to eat. Instead, I can graze on other things picked up while at the store, like olives stuffed with garlic, a runny cheese, and slices of a sourdough baguette.