A woman I knew way back when said that when she cooked for her ex-BF at his place, it always cost her a fortune because he had very few pantry staples. You don't need to go crazy but it's probably a few hundred dollars to setup for reasonable cooking from square 1.
Exactly. And if you aren't used to it, you can easily mess it up. You get things that don't last as long as you expect, or too much of an ingredient.
Once you have a decent set up and pantry, it's not bad. But if you need 5 spices to try a recipe, you're looking at at least a $15 home cooked meal. For one person.
