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I like cooking. I like being in the kitchen. I like — most of the time — what comes out of our kitchen.

For years, dating all the way back to college in fact, I’ve enjoyed cooking. I can’t really tell you exactly what it is about cooking, because let’s face it, there are nights all of us want to get home and do nothing more than sit on the couch and shove Lays potato chips in your mouth, thankful that you can’t eat just one. Nevertheless, I do enjoy it.

There’s something about bringing together all of the ingredients into one coherent dish that is supremely satisfying, so much so that I’m frequently watching the Food Network and taking in the tips and tricks like a sponge taking in water.

I can trace my true enjoyment of cooking back to when I was in college when me and my roommate would contemplate all the ways we could bring hamburger, soup and cheese together into one dish to get us through the night.

But really, it goes back even further than that. When I was younger, I can remember sitting in my grandparent’s camper at the horse track, watching a PBS show called “Yan Can Cook.” The show centered around Chef Yan and not only featured the first real kitchen knife-work I had seen, but also was a show that saw him create dishes that anybody could approach with confidence.

I can remember Grandma Darlington and myself watching the show and thrilling at the blur of blades as they came down on carrots, onions, garlic and meat and laughing emphatically as he did so.

I can also remember being thoroughly enamored with my grandma’s beef stew, which she always maintained wasn’t much, but to me it was every bit of a comfort that the scents promised.

Moving forward into high school, there was a draw to the kitchen portion of our home economics class — for better or for worse. Still being a teenager and being something of a screw-off at the same time, it doesn’t seem so surprising today that a cookie recipe my small group was working on would include both me and a buddy putting a cup of sugar into the mix and not knowing we had done it.

Our teacher at the time found it curious that the cookies should be so flat and dare I say marveled at just how hard they were. Neither of us could quite figure out what had happened until we went through the recipe to make sure we got everything included.

Rumor has it that the Edmonton Oilers still use our cookies today during practices.

Now we are able to fast forward to today where the highlight for many of my days is getting into the kitchen for supper and going to work. Sometimes these meals include recipes I’ve done before or at the very least are trying from a known source

Other times, it more resembles something more akin to a mad scientist’s approach. Grab a can of that, another can of the other thing … oh, hey that pepper isn’t near as wrinkled as I thought it was … what’s that in the very back of the freezer? It looks like meat.

Let’s see what happens.

Mind you, it doesn’t all come out tasty and I’ve managed to screw up plenty of meals in the past, but there is something about getting it right. Something about hitting that balance that leads to self-satisfaction in a job well done.

Followed by a string of cursing because I didn’t think to write the steps down as I went along. As I’ve often said, some days I’m lucky to get to work with my pants on.

Still, there is that notion that the more you do things, the more you refine something and as often as I’ve heard my dad joke about opening a restaurant up north, the notion does bubble to the surface every now and again that maybe I should have taken things a little more seriously when I was younger.

But let’s be honest, I’m not doing it now. Nobody is going to come to a restaurant that features what I cook today.

Waiter: And what will you be having this evening?

Diner: I think I will have the Whatever Platter.

Waiter: Very good. I hear it resembles pasta and meatballs — without the meatballs.

I guess at the end of the day, I should be happy with my skills in the kitchen. There are no complaints really coming from our house and I have all of my fingers still. That has to count for something — like 10.

I highly suggest you take some time some night, pour yourself a glass of wine, turn on some music and drum something up out of the blue. It’s an enjoyable moment of time that really lets you get creative and can take you out of a bad day. When it’s all said and done and you think back on how good everything is … pay that neighbor kid a couple bucks to wash the dishes.

You can drink all the wine in the world, but washing dishes never becomes fun.