Is It Cooking, Or Is It Memorex....

Silly me... you know how I am about fun titles. I try real hard to amuse myself figuring that I will amuse anyone that stops by in the process, but I would like your opinion...

I am, what I fetchingly like to call myself, a survival eater. Basically that means I eat when I'm hungry. I rarely plan a meal and at times in my life when I've lived alone and been responsible for my own survival, food-wise, I'm very off the cuff, as it were... I can cook a passable meal, but I really don't much care to about 97% of the time. I am fortunate enough (or smart enough) to be surrounded by people who can cook. My friend that I have lived with for years is an excellent and creative cook. Same with my middle brother, Bro, who lives with us. I have a multitude of family and friends that are good cooks, and in our discussions about meal preparation the question arose, "what is cooking?" My contention is if there are three steps involved it is cooking, such as getting a can out of the pantry, opening the can, dumping the contents into said pan on the stove and turning on the fire under the pan, that's more than three steps, so that is cooking, plus an extra step. Missy, my wonderful cooking roomie, and other friends have decided that cooking requires more than one item, adding one or more ingredients into the basic mix, before it can be called cooking, instead of just heating food to eat. Last night we had what we affectionately call a 'root-hog' night which basically means no one is in the mood or feels like whipping up dinner and everyone is left their own devices to root around in the fridge or pantry to find something to eat. I got out a can of spaghettios, opened it, put it in the pan, turned on the stove... therefore, in my opinion, cooking. Then I got a hot dog out of the fridge, cut it up and put it in with the spaghettios, turned and asked Missy and Bro if that meant I was cooking by other people's standards....

Now back to the question... what, in your esteemed opinions, constitutes cooking? Or have you all gone to sleep after trying to read through all the above idiocy?

I thank you all and appreciate your opinions...