I have been thinking on how to celebrate my birthday, I thought of inviting my parents to my favorite restaurant. When I brought it up, they were all upset “why don’t you invite us to your home? Why don’t you cook for us? Restaurant is all reheated food, home cooked fresh food is much better” etc. We have lived in Europe for almost my whole life, I don’t really understand what’s wrong with going out to eat or why they expect me to invite them to my house and prepare a festive meal on my birthday.
That’s your judgement of your food. It’s natural for you to have a number of biases to favor your own cooking. Most notably the 4 hours of effort it takes you.
But home cooking isn’t generally that. It’s the 20-40min one puts in right after getting home from work. Comparing your most intensive 4h hours of effort against something a restaurant cook does absent mindedly isn’t really a comparison. If they put in your effort you wouldn’t have a chance.
Well, to be fair, we are talking about “special occasion” food specifically, not weeknight goulash.