It's 5am. My family is asleep. I slide out of bed, creep down the stairs, and enter the kitchen. Through the window, faint light dapples the horizon, teasing a rising sun.

I turn on the stove. While it heats, I prepare my station. A knife. A bowl. An old plastic mixing fork.

I inspect the fork. It is old and worn and made of cheap plastic. I don't remember where it came from, perhaps a dollar store. It seemed like something we've always had, following us from home to home to home, always finding its own place to settle amidst our ever-changing lives.

I like this fork.

The dogs grow restless. They wonder if I have forgotten them. I have not. I fill their bowls with food and water. They thank me with wagging tails. I return to—Oh right, the cat. I haven't forgotten you either. Heh. Sorry about that. Here you go.

I return to the kitchen. I can smell hot metal. It's time.

Oil. Hashbrowns. Sizzle. Nice.

I lean my back against the counter and close my eyes. The oil crackles on the stovetop. The rest of the world is still. The day ahead will hold many moments for many people, but this one belongs to me.

I open my eyes. The sun is showing a bit more of itself now. It peeks through the window and spies on me. It wants to know how I make my eggs.

One egg. Crack. Two egg. Crack. Three egg. Crack. Into the bowl they go. A splash of milk. The mixing fork does its job. Around and around and around. Good job, fork.

I turn back to face the sun. Soon, the Earth will finish a single rotation and the sun will rise high into the sky. It has completed this ritual 1.6 trillion times. More times than every breath I will ever take.

I hear a creak from above. My family is awake. They come down the stairs. My wife smiles. My son smiles. I smile. Away they go. They have rituals of their own to attend to. The sun, the fork, and I will attend to ours.

I dump the eggs onto the hashbrowns. The mixing fork does its job yet again. Fried salami joins the fray. I top it all with melted cheese. Nice. I grab plates, utensils, napkins, and orange juice. The ritual is complete.

In the next room, my wife has finished feeding our son. I set her breakfast down. She thanks me. She doesn't know I'm the one thanking her.

I sit down beside her and grab a remote. I press shuffle. The music plays. David Bowie. Nice.

♫ I heard the news today, oh boy
I got a suite and you got defeat
Ain't there a man who can say no more?
And, ain't there a woman I can sock on the jaw?
And, ain't there a child I can hold without judging?
Ain't there a pen that will write before they die?
Ain't you proud that you've still got faces?
Ain't there one damn song that can make me
Break down and cry? ♫

We eat our breakfast. The sun has risen. The world is awake.

Today will hold many moments. But this one is ours.

I've been thinking about this over the past few weeks after chatting with some of my friends about this.

For some framing:
I grew up with my parents not encouraging me to learn to cook and my Mom actively refusing to have myself or my brother in the kitchen because we always "made a mess". Before I moved out to university I'd only ever cooked a couple of meals beyond warming things up or instant ramen + grilling meat. I also learned how to carve a turkey/bird because that would be expected of me at a family gathering later on. At university we had the mandatory freshman meal plan my first year and I lived in my fraternity for three years where we had a cook at our house when school was in session.

It wasn't until I moved in with my girlfriend, now wife, where I started cooking. Learning from either recipes, or watching my wife cook things and asking her how she prepared a dish so I could try to make it. Nowadays I like cooking breakfast foods especially on the weekend when I don't have to get my oldest off to school and have more time since my wife doesn't like to wake up early.

When chatting with my guy friends who are around my age (late 20s/early 30s) I've found a lot of them don't cook much or say they don't know how. Many of them eat out regularly/order delivery or buy instant meals.

Knowing my parents, if I had had a sister growing up she would have been encouraged to learn to cook unlike my brother and I. My wife and her siblings all learned through helping my mother in law prepare food in the kitchen.

This got me curious for a wider perspective on this from other men:

Do you "know" how to cook or are you comfortable cooking for yourself, for others?
Were you encouraged to learn how to cook growing up or did you learn as an adult?
Do you have any favorite or signature dishes you prepare?