"When you come home from work, exhausted, that is exactly when you shouldn't try to cook a meal with your fresh vegetables, " she says.

WSJ: What to Do With an Abundance of Vegetables

He wants only to light a small fire, enough to cook a simple meal, nothing more, hardly an undertaking momentous enough to give rise to premonitions such as these.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Woodsburner'

No longer is it so important that you learned to cook a new meal every week for a year, but now the focus turns to how many thousands of families you touched by creating healthy cooking videos that were then posted on YouTube and viewed by moms who were previously hardcore fast foodies.

FORBES: Why Bucket Lists Are So Last Year

Say you want to cook a new meal, the technology can project a recipe right onto your cooking surface.

FORBES: For PrimeSense, Microsoft's Kinect Is Just the Beginning

She is supported by a charity called United Response which has installed video phone technology into a number of homes to assist people with daily living - helping to compile shopping lists or advice on how to cook a basic meal.

BBC: NEWS | Health | Is technology the answer to social care?

My friend Steve taught me how to cook a gourmet Mexican meal.

WSJ: Dilbert Creator Scott Adams's Year Without Fear

And for when you need to charge your gadgets or lamps while camping, the PowerPot is a new camping pot that uses heat to charge your devices while you cook a meal.

ENGADGET: blogger-avatar

Figuring out how to do the laundry, cook a basic meal or even wait for a handyman "are not crippling responsibilities" but rather "minor life skills" that can prove useful if the housekeeper cancels.

WSJ: Forget the Old College Try, Ring the Concierge

Eventually a harried housewife or a busy executive will be able to order a ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook gourmet meal for delivery by dinner time (see box).

FORBES: The Anti-Wal-Mart