Whenever people hear that I collect cookbooks, they logically assume that I love to cook. That is true most days, but not always. There are times when I cannot stomach the thought of chopping a vegetable or stirring a sauce or cleaning up yet another sink full of bowls, so I fire up the oven and pop in a frozen pizza or pick up the phone and call for takeout. Does this mean I have to turn in my 'foodie' credentials? Not at all, says Adam Liaw, who reminds us that it is okay to hate cooking.

Liaw says that while "foodie" culture (I think we both share a dislike of that word) has helped people appreciate food more, there is a downside. When where, what, and how you eat becomes overly important, the practical aspects of cookery can be lost. Spending too much time on any one subject, even cooking, is not healthy. And it is fine if some days you don't feel like making anything and eat a PB&J sandwich while standing over the sink so you don't have any dishes to wash.

That is the part of Liaw's argument that resonated the most with me - the monotony of the cleanup. "I hate the Sisyphean cycle of cleaning up a kitchen mess, just to make it all over again," he laments. On most evenings, one of the last things I do before retiring (to read a cookbook before going to bed, of course) is make sure that the kitchen is tidy. But last night I glared at the pans, plates and glasses piled in the sink, turned out the lights and went straight to bed. The dishes weren't going anywhere, and I had had enough. And that was okay.