Eating out is disgusting. I used to work in a restaurant and I realized the "secret" to making "restaurant quality" food is basically just copious amounts of salt, butter, and sugar. The environments are usually unsanitary and you're basically just rolling the dice as to whether or not the workers in the back are too lazy or too busy to give a shit. Example, dish washers have to stick their hands and arms in piles of food, often in sinks that are clogged with food too. They're required to wash their hands before handling clean dishes but many don't. So imagine taking food from hundreds of people, making a soup with it, then dunking your hand in it and licking your hand. They don't pay enough to keep good workers around so you get lots of slack jawed idiots who don't care and will be gone in a month or two anyways. There were times I would redo multiple loads of dishes just because I was so disgusted with how poorly my co-workers did.

skills in the kitchen

It's great when you get to the point when you can just make stuff. Whatever happens to be in the kitchen/pantry can be made into something delicious in a relatively easy manner.

When I first learned to cook many moons ago there were a lot of mistakes and looking up how-to videos. Now I mostly know any recipe I usually do by heart and often look up new recipes and modify them with what I have on hand to my own tastes. Custom-made food you know is clean and fresh, it's the best.