Dad was not a cook

My dad was not a cook, but I learned some important things about feeding myself from him. Here are a couple:

You have to eat

When I moved to North Carolina to go to graduate school at NCSU, I pretty much lost my shit. I could get to work, but I couldn't do much else. On the payphone at the end of the street, Dad told me that I had to eat and that if that meant going over to Food Lion and buying a bunch of Carnation Instant Breakfast and a gallon of milk, then I should do that. So I did.

Its ok to eat out

This is a corollary to the previous point, but in addition to the simple feeding part, it also addresses a certain level of self-respect. Take yourself out to eat. Pay for it, it is money well spent. This is an idea I will come back to later.

Cooking and heating things up are different

He never said this, I learned it from watching him. He couldn't cook, but he could also barely heat things up. Eventually he started to get it and my sister Maris spent hours with him on the phone walking him through dinner prepartions. The point is that burning canned soup sucks whether you do it or somebody else does.

There is probably more, but that's what I have at the moment.