The best way to get rid of a fear is to face it.

Try cooking something simple like pancakes. Really, just following the directions of a recipe should make cooking anything pretty simple, if not time consuming the more complicated it gets. Even the most lavish of foods aren’t exactly difficult. They just take patience and time.

Keep baking soda around, if you manage to start a fire use it to smother the fire.

Otherwise, if you fuck up the food, order a pizza and try again tomorrow

get a rice cooker.

One button. super safe. easy to clean.

there are recipe books about how to use a rice cooker to cook all sorts of stuff (rice, curries, hot pot, soups, pasta, steamed anything)

with that same one button.

after you get comfortable heating up food so that you can eat it, you can try a pan or a Crock-Pot, whatever strikes your fancy.

Take a cooking class. Learn how to manage a kitchen fire with a fire blanket or extinguisher and get one of each. Start practicing. You’ll burn stuff and make food that’s no good but you’ll get better. Start simple with stuff like pasta.

Your first step might be finding someone who can mentor you and help you and teach you a bit. Someone with patience and who is caring.

To be honest though, it sounds like some good therapeutic council would do you very well and bring quality of life.

First, it’s OK to not cook. If you are getting by alright without cooking, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Second, I respect you coming here and admitting your fear. Ironically it takes a lot of bravery to do that!

Third, irrational fears and anxieties are a normal part of the human experience. Everybody has them, so though it can feel like you’re being stupid, you’re really just being human (though some might say that’s two ways of saying the same thing).

Fourth, I’m not a therapist or medical professional but the treatment for phobias I am aware of are CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), and exposure therapy. You can find CBT and ACT workbooks that might be helpful. As for exposure therapy, I think it’s best to work with a professional doing that. Exposure therapy is not just taking the plunge, there’s a process to it. Of course, if you can afford it, talking to a mental health professional is always best.

Good luck!

id start by using cooking tools that require low maintainance and skill (e. g crock pots, microwave, airfryer is next step up)

after that youd probably want something that minimuzes fire hazards, so id probably start by cooking using induction cooking ware. since it itself does not generate a fire, the only way you could actually do one is if the physical food itself burns.

start with soups on induction cookware because itd be very hard pressed to start a fire when youre cooking some soup on it.

Use induction or electric stoves. They don’t have a visible fire so that might help with your worry of starting one. But remember it can still happen of course, it just helps that you’re not seeing an actual fire while cooking. Like others said, you can also use other electric cookware like an airfryer, griddle, etc. Just make it a habit to be always present and not forget that you’re cooking something and you’ll avoid most burning/fire accidents.

I haven’t experienced what you’re describing. Previous experience suggests exposure is the next step for you. If a cooking class isn’t feasible right now then start with watching some videos online (best if they’re home cooks - you want to watch common cooking of foods you like to eat).

You’re not trying to memorize anything or learn hard skills during this time. You’re only trying to become more familiar with people working in a kitchen so it doesn’t feel as alien and maybe not quite as scary.

Do that regularly for a while. If it’s too much for you: dial it back. You do want to push your boundaries but only when you’re feeling ok about it. Small wins will turn into more small wins and eventually you might be interested in trying to cook something.

If that happens, and I suspect it will, know that it is OK to start cautiously and take your time learning how to use the oven and stove top. Try turning a burner on with no pan or pot on top. Let it get hot. Turn it off. Let it cool down. Repeat that across a few days if the first one helps you.

Once you’re comfortable you should do that practice again and add water to a pan until its half full. Once the burner is hot: place your pan of water on top of the stove burner. Let the water come to a boil. Remove the pan from the stove top. Let the pan and water cool down. Note how much water is missing (some of it will have steamed away while boiling). Add that much water back to the pan and practice this again.

You can build your experiences, step by step, with safe extensions and new footholds, until you’re feeling confident about cooking something with the boiling water. You’re going to boil an egg!

Complete your practice again but instead of taking the water off right after it boils: leave it on the burner for 6 minutes. Then remove it and let it cool. Success? Do that again using a pot instead of a pan. Pot half full of water. Grab a serving spoon or similar item. Once the water comes to a boil:

1. Lower the burner temperature to half / medium. The water should be moving and steamy but the bubbles should be very gentle or cease. Dropping the egg into actively boiling water may cause the egg to crack prematurely.
2. Use the serving spoon to gently place the egg in the center of the boiling water.
3. Wait six minutes.
4. Remove the pot of water from the burner.
5. Turn the burner off.
6. Use the serving spoon to lift the egg out of the hot water.
7. Run the egg under cold water (this helps it from over cooking and helps make peeling easier).
8. Enjoy your egg.

You can absolutely boil any kind of pasta, lots of vegetables, and almost all starchy foods. Boiling is very safe because the water regulates the temperature for us. So long as there is water in the pot the pot is unable to meaningfully exceed 100 degrees Celsius (the boiling point of water / ~212F). It is very difficult to burn anything or start a fire while boiling water.

Best of luck my friend.

Convenience appliances? You can do a lot with a microwave oven, air fryer and coffee maker, without any flame, or really any exposed hot surfaces

You might mess up! That’s normal. Even experienced professionals do. That might be part of your apprehension? Like, if those experienced professionals can goof up, imagine what an inexperienced person might do?

But, the reality is that you’ll mess up the same when you mess up. It’ll be a little cut here, a little singe there. Your kitchen won’t explode, you won’t catch on fire. All in all, you stop thinking of some things as mess-ups and start thinking of them as just a normal outcome.

Here’s what I would recommend doing if you want to practice in safe ways:

• Practice mixing drinks. Not necessarily cocktails! Like, mix some herbs and juice in with a club soda. Tada, that’s cooking.
• Practice making salads with take-home kits. Add some vinegar or oil and herbs in addition to what you’ve got out of the kit.
• Make hot drinks: teas, coffees, things like that. Eventually start making your own syrups for them: look up simple syrup recipes and infusions.
• Get frozen pizzas or other frozen foods. Buy extra shredded cheese and Italian seasoning. Cook them as normal except add the cheese and seasoning on top before you do.

Here’s what I would recommend if you want to increase your own personal safety:

• Get a fire extinguisher and put it somewhere obvious in your kitchen.
• Look for “cut resistant” gloves. They help protect your hands when you’re working with knives and stuff.
• Get some timers with magnets on them and practice using them. The most likely way something’ll catch fire is if you’re distracted and timers will help you avoid that.
• Get some silicone mitts and handles for the oven. They’re incredibly heat resilient!

I’d also maybe just say familiarize yourself with cooking enough to demystify it? Like, marathon watch Good Eats or Iron Chef or something? Put it on in the background while you do other stuff, and just get used to seeing kitchens and food in action?

Fundamentally though this might be worth talking to a therapist about, because it could be that you’ve got some kind of reason (maybe more rational than you imagine) to have this apprehension. If that’s the case the first step is, honestly, talking it out with someone and not ignoring it and forcing yourself to do something you’re uncomfortable with.

I am a software engineer by trade, so when I started cooking, everything and every tool was intimidating, because I had no idea how it worked nor what it was meant for. I knew nothing about knives besides not to drop one, didn’t know the difference between a wok and a skillet, and didn’t understand how oil creates a non-stick surface on a non-non-stick pan.

What helped me was a book that wasn’t like a recipe or cook book, but something closer to a food and kitchen textbook. The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt goes into some excruciatingly scientific detail about the role of different kitchen implements, and then showcasing recipes that apply theory to practice. Each step in the recipes thoroughly describe what to do, and the author puts a lot of content onto his YouTube channel as well.

It was this book that convinced me to buy, strip, and season a cast iron pan, which has already proven its worth as a non-sticking vessel comparable to my old Teflon-coated pans. And I think for you, reading the theory and following some of the recipes might develop sufficient experience to at least be comfortable in an active kitchen. It’s very much a chicken-and-egg problem – if you’ll pardon the poultry pun – but this book might be enough to make progress in the kitchen.

Also, since it was published in 2015, it’s very likely available at your local library, so check there first before spending money to buy the book. Good luck with your culinary development!

Take a cooking class. And/or maybe do it together wih some friens/relatives, so they can manage the responsibility and you can get familiar with the equipment.

What exactly are you afraid of? And is there a specific cause to that? If there is, that probably changes how to approach it.

Main topic aside, what are you doing putting bread and butter together with a fork?

All the small appliance suggestions so far are great - they remove a lot of the danger and give you an easy place to start. Same for the safety items. Even with no fear, it is sensible to have an extinguisher and fire blanket in the kitchen.

When you feel that you are ready to start picking up knives and working with flame, do it with a friend or family member that is suitably understanding & willing to teach. Simply watching it done is still familiarising yourself with the process and hopefully reducing your fears.

My sister is the same way - I am teaching her slowly. We started with baking, as all the prep work is done cold with only one heating process. Not exactly healthy, but it it gets the ball rolling on working with heat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQBUu3J2USA

Kitchen fires are scarier than they are difficult to deal with, if you are prepared and remain calm. You can see in this video how quickly and easily you can contain and extinguish the fire with just a baking sheet or a metal pot lid or just another pan. The real trouble happens when people panic or respond to the fire improperly, like splashing water onto it. It’s also smart to keep a small fire extinguisher in your kitchen, just in case.

There is also a lot of food that you can cook that will have little to no risk of causing a fire (soup, curry, rice, pasta, braised meats, steamed vegetables, pretty much anything that is wet or contains a lot of water or is cooked with water/steam), although if you keep your kitchen clean and tidy, and use your stove burners on appropriate levels, there should be little risk of a fire anyway.