College is a time to learn about many of life's greatest lessons. One such lesson is the ability to feed oneself: learning how to cook. One of my best friends moved out of the dorms between semesters and into a house; thus, my own secret case study began. My friend and I share many things in common: an embarrassing unfamiliarity of the kitchen is one of them. I have enjoyed many a night sitting in her kitchen, watching her run around, trying desperately to identify what sizes of pots she has and needs to use and screaming when the water inevitably boils over on the stove top behind her.

Before leaving home, I never realized how much I took our kitchen appliances for granted. The other week, I was making biscotti with a friend when I realized that many of the ordinary kitchen utensils required in the ingredient were nowhere to be found in any of our friends' homes. In a world where dollar pizza and cheap beer rule, electric mixers and cake pans are dying breeds.

I'm personally excited to learn how to fend for myself. For some reason, an image of primitive man always comes to mind when I think of my friends and their own culinary maturations. Back in "the day," mankind used all of his energy to hunt and eat; survival was an all-consuming process. This is somewhat comparable to how I see many of my friends in their own kitchen wildernesses. Grocery stores are bewildering to those who lack the funds and foresight to plan out their sustenance on weekly schedules. It's almost a hunting environment in which all the prey have been neatly packaged and laid out for the hunter. And monitoring food so that it doesn't spill over, burn, catch fire, or collapse in a disaster of inedible, wasted grocery money? That in itself is time consuming; at least, to the college student who is constantly pressed for time and has thus adapted to a lifestyle of constant multitasking and rushing around.

It's no wonder why cooking is such a valuable commodity in our generations' college households. I was not surprised while, among my tangible birthday gifts, a number of my friends offered their advanced culinary services to me for one night.