Video games are great because they take you to another world. In video games you get to fight demons, pull off bank heists, run for 300 yards, build towering cities and pretty much anything you’ve ever wanted to do but weren’t strong or powerful enough to do. Cooking Mama for the Nintendo DS goes in the other direction and lets you do all of the things you can do yourself but actually makes them fun instead of tedious and necessary for survival.

Have you ever wanted to make fried chicken? Beef curry and rice? Spaghetti Neapolitan with Salisbury steak on top? If you have, then you’ve probably already made them. BUT! Have you ever made them while a cute, Japanese, 9-year-old mother with a temper watches over you? HAVE YOU?

In Cooking Mama you get to make a variety of dishes (mostly Japanese) using your stylus and some quick reflexes. In order to cook each meal, you have to cut cabbage, chop garlic, cover meat with flour and sauté onions all while being mindful of the time and being careful not to burn your items. Using real recipes, with real ingredients and cooking tools, you’ll be rolling up spring rolls in no time.

Every part of the process from cutting meat to frying is accomplished with very short minigames – think WarioWare meets Iron Chef, minus the competition and bad hairdos. You use your stylus to cut the meat, flip the frying pan, slice the eggplant and so on. You can even cool down your soup by blowing into the mic (spitting on the screen doesn’t help). Even though each minigame involves the same moves, it doesn’t feel like it because each meal is different and seeing the final product is what motivates you.

As far as graphics go, they aren’t even an issue when playing a game like this. It’s all Japanese anime style and so of course everything is exaggerated and colorful. I will say this though, I’ve ALWAYS been a fan of the way cartoon food looks – I really wish our food looked as appetizing and filling as colored in drawings do. I would never eat pasta with oyster sauce in real life, but in anime world I would lick my plate clean.

I’ve spent a good deal of my life wishing I could cook and now with this new game, I’m still wishing. But at least now I know that cooking is a real thing and not just a magical ritual performed by girlfriends and mothers. The only thing missing from this game is a microwave popcorn dish and an easy-bake oven attachment for my DS (get to work Nintendo!).