It started from sloth and gluttony, actually. I remember wanting a cookie, but not having the motivation to go out into the world to buy cookies. So I looked around the kitchen, looked up a couple of recipes, and tried to make some simple sugar cookies with what I had on hand. I didn't have the right kind of flour, and ended up using whole wheat flour, so I had these odd looking brown-ish sugar cookies.

They were so good. I couldn't believe I'd made them. So I started picking up the spices and other ingredients that cookie recipes commonly asked for, and I started making cookies every weekend. Then I started collecting cookbooks. Eventually I changed the way I bought groceries, I don't buy finished food anymore for the most part, I buy ingredients. I have an impressive spice collection built up at this point, some of which was grown by my wife. I have all the cool stuff like cooking sherry and at least three different kinds of vinegar.

And now, a decade after making those first ugly cookies, I can create an amazing meal at the drop of a hat using only the stuff in my house. And then I can make cookies that melt in your mouth and are so tasty they would make a medieval peasant cry.

Tl;dr: Man is too lazy to drive to town, changes his life and eating habits over a decade instead.