12) Aspirational Purchases

Every time I go to the grocery store, I’m always faced with a small test of willpower at the check out lane. No, it’s not the stacks of chocolates to my right (I’ve learned to block out the calls of cocoa). It’s a small 7 by 5 inch magazine called Everyday Food, published by the Martha Stewart conglomerate. I’m not a huge Martha fanatic, but Everyday Food always entices, with promises of “Fast, healthy meals” and “Fresh dinners from your freezer,” accompanied by well-lit photography of roasted chicken on a bed of wilted greens, nestled next to a wedge of lemon. Martha and her super team have successfully honed in on a demographic who doesn’t really cook, and are looking for quick, but healthy, but delicious (and cheap) solutions.

At $3.50 a pop, the magazine wouldn’t be a splurge. What stops me from throwing it on top of my yogurt, cereal and red grapes is the fact that I have a sizeable stack of food magazines and cook books at my apartment. A largely unused stack.

One of the most common fallacies is the belief that buying the tools for a new hobby or skill will lead to said hobby or skill. While I have dreams of cooking dinner every night, and have stocked my small kitchen with all the appliances I would need to do so, I can’t even remember the last time I made something other than boiling pasta and heating jarred sauce. It’s not to say that I’ve NEVER cooked, but it’s usually a good two or three months between each appearance of chef Natalie. I remember when I was purchasing the 7-piece non-stick pan set and the Cuisineart blender-food-processor-in-one, I reasoned that if I had the right tools to cook, I would have no excuse not to.

Turns out, there are plenty of excuses. By the time I get home from work, it would be 9-9:30PM before a cooked meal would be ready. It’s often cheaper and easier just to eat out. But something tells me that if I really wanted to cook more, I would make it happen.

Just like buying a Nike Plus won’t automatically make a couch potato a runner, and investing in a full set of pastels and acrylics won’t necessarily make you a painter, spending money on cooking magazines won’t make me cook more. However, we make these aspirational purchases in the hopes that it will change us. Of course, that’s not to say that someone who is really committed to taking up running wouldn’t be motivated by a gadget that tracks mileage and heart rate. But like any research design professor will tell you, you can’t assume causation.

Maybe it’s just a matter of time. For now, I guess I can be satisfied in knowing that when I do have the time, money and motivation to cook, Martha & I will be ready.