One thing that improved my cooking skills was being a poor student in California... If you don't have much money, you have to learn to cook.
Writing is work and cooking is relaxing.
I like cream cheese in just about anything.
Catering is extremely demanding financially and physically. It's a business.
What one's goal should be is just to become a better writer and to tell different kinds of stories.
When I started to write culinary mysteries, I did it because nobody was doing it anymore.