

This was spurred by a discussion with a friend whose family had never made garlic bread (foreign family) and considered it an exotic treat to buy the horrible tinfoil-wrapped stuff at Safeway. I had never considered that someone wouldn't know how to make garlic bread, but there are probably a lot of dishes I pay for at ethnic restaurants that are laughably easy to make. Ideally these should be things that you can explain to neophytes in less than 5 minutes with no understanding of the fundamental principles, no specialized equipment, and no chance of catastrophic failure.

What things would you would never consider paying money for, once you learned how easy it was to do/make/fix yourself?