Some people grow up loving the kitchen and learning how to cook, diving into recipes and creating their own with no inhibitions.

I appreciate those people, because they sustained me for many years while I refused to approach things like raw meat, whole vegetables and the ever-mysterious spice rack.

Cooking has never been an interest of mine, so I’ve been content to leave it to more experienced folks. Over the years that’s meant devoting a not insignificant part of my budget to eating out and heat-at-home meals.

To clarify, it’s not that I hated the kitchen growing up. I love to bake, and everyone in Hawaii knows how to cook rice. But as far as “real” food was concerned, I didn’t care to even attempt it.

Now that I’m married, though, my attitude toward cooking has morphed dramatically. It’s possible to say I even enjoy it a little.

In fact, both my husband and I have started to embrace working in the kitchen more. He has a deeper cooking background than I do, but together we are preparing family-style dishes (like casseroles, stir-fries and baked salmon) as opposed to meals for one.

Truthfully, I think part of the reason is we’ve finally started to crack open some of our cooking-related wedding gifts and realized they’re much more useful out of their boxes.

My husband has even purchased new trinkets to try. We both love tamagoyaki, the Japanese cooked egg popular in sushi restaurants, so one day a pan designed specifically for that dish popped up at the front door. We’re also the proud owners of a slick, no-stick-ever pan and a device to cook popovers (for the two times we cooked popovers).

Armed with our fancy kitchenware, we are discovering how satisfying it is to go from dish conception to finding the ingredients to preparing it. The best part is when the dish we end up with is just like the one we sought to make — and even if it’s a little off, usually it’s still pretty tasty.

One day, for example, somewhere between his craving and my small-kid memory of Lenten Fridays we developed a hankering for tuna casserole. It wasn’t a difficult recipe, but we were still amazed that it came out pretty well.

I’d get the same satisfaction when I used to bake, but there’s also only so much baking you can do without having an overload of carbs. Even after sharing, I’d often still be stuck with leftovers.

With real meals, those leftovers don’t get lost on the kitchen counter. We incorporate them into our meal plans for the week, which helps us save money and ensures we have something to eat.

Home cooking also gives us a chance to share these meals with others. While the last season of “Game of Thrones” aired, we would watch each episode with my husband’s cousins while trading dishes we often cooked at home.

This probably all sounds really obvious to people who enjoy cooking, but I should emphasize that I come from a truly basic level of kitchen experience. I still don’t like touching raw meat and probably hold a knife completely wrong to slice vegetables. My preferred spice is plain old pepper, and my default way to prepare food on the stovetop is until it’s practically black around the edges — just to ensure something is cooked all the way through.

I guess there’s something about having someone to cook with and for that makes preparing food less of a chore and, dare I say it, fun.

“She Speaks” is a column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Celia Downes at cdownes@staradvertiser.com.