I love everything about cooking. Except for the actual act of cooking.

And, I’d imagine, to the food-passionate circles of which I dream of being part, such a declaration would be akin to telling, say, a whale activist that I like everything about saving whales except for having to actually cut those storied nets and save them.

I read food magazines and chef memoirs. I study recipes. I watch as much cooking as my basic cable package allows. I bore (and quite possibly drive away) those around me with talk of meals way before and way after the fact.

And see? You’re probably already thinking, “Wow. How unique of you.”

Yes, in the eyes of the walk-the-walk cooking world, I’m just another non-low-brow American with an appetite.

But, to be honest, I just don’t have any major desire to really start cooking. Or at least not quite yet. Because it doesn’t make sense for my life quite yet. Cooking for myself in an apartment that boasts not even the tiniest splash of countertop; purchasing ingredients with a bank account that’s overdrawn bi-weekly; preparing said ingredients to almost surely come out inedible—it all strikes me as a bit masochistic, if anything. Practice makes perfect, yes, but practicing is expensive. And demands a countertop.

Is this wrong though? Does a love for all things food have to be yoked with the actual act of cooking in order to be legitimate? In terms of my aforementioned social aspirations, I think it does. Without having experienced the process of bringing meals to life, I fear that my passion comes off as unsubstantiated. I can spend my days sitting in my counterless apartment-for-one romanticizing the world of food, but until I’ve experienced its less romantic aspects (save for weight gain), can it really be called love?

Well, it certainly is love, but perhaps to please the masses and silence my insecurities, I should just make something. I am 25 years old, after all. And if anything, it’d be interesting to see what my obsession is capable of bringing to life.

Step one: a salad! How about Cilantro Lime Crab Salad? But with plain Greek yogurt in place of the mayonnaise. A salad is something I can keep in the fridge. And one which I don’t feel guilty about picking at compulsively. Lean proteins. Vegetables. Happy fats.

Wish me luck…