I think back to when I was making Parker House Rolls with my dad last Christmas. We were rolling out the dough, preparing to mold them into what would make them

Last weekend, as Sanjeev and I were preparing our 4th of July meal, I thought I’d feel sad. Sad that we weren’t at my parents’ house in Pennsylvania, hanging out around the pool as my dad grilled hotdogs and hamburgers.

The story of how I fell in love with food and cooking isn’t super uncommon, but it's special to me, and something I felt was worth sharing.

For the first two months of our relationship, we didn’t go on a single date outside of Sanjeev’s single dorm on our floor freshman year of college. It was briskly cold out for those first few months. We were lazy, binge-watching TV shows and movies, not surprisingly.

I never thought I needed an Instant Pot. When it seemed like everyone wanted one in 2016/17, I honestly didn’t get the fascination. To me, it just seemed like a lazy way to make meals, and one really didn’t require any skill or cooking know-how. So why would I, someone with an elevated interest in cooking and food, ever want to own one? But that was my old mindset.