Before you start cooking food, you need to have a kitchen with utensils for cooking. In order to get the kitchen, you must upgrade your house at least once and have bought items from Karen's Supermarket for 10 days to unlock the Shopping Channel. The kitchen should then be for sale on the Shopping Channel. When you first get the kitchen, you will only be able to cook No Utensil dishes. You must buy the rest of the utensils (pot, frying pan, steamer, oven, mixer) to be able to cook other things. They will be available on the Shopping Channel weekly.