If you cook, you cook for a purpose, you don't throw food away just because you've cooked for the sake of cooking, you eat it, or serve it to someone else to eat. In the end it's a chore fulfilled still.
And lawn mowing is a part of gardening, just as pruning flowers and dealing with seedlings is. Sincerely, what do you think gardening is? Vegetables and fruit trees? No, as a hobby and chore it's so much more than that. If you own a garden you want it to be presentable in at least some capacity, that requires taking care of it by planting bushes, trimming them, dealing with pests, seeding new grass if a heatwave destroyed it, etc.
Grass is a part of gardens??? Where do you live that your garden has no lawn/grass in it??? If you own a house the area around it is called a garden, and taking care of it is called gardening, what kind of house are you used to???
In America gardens are typically the tilled soil where one grows fruits, herbs, vegetables, and/or flowers. The grass is the lawn. Most houses have lawns, not everyone has the time, knowledge, or interest to have a garden.
Grass is not stupid! The way we work it is however quite stupid. There are beautiful and resilient types of grasses which are fun to grow. They also have a rich history, read otherlands if you like to go through the ages of flora and fauna
Wait, you're American aren't you? FYI, in other countries people who own a house have more than a lawn, because only having a lawn is considered weird af. But taking care of that lawn is still considered a part of gardening, and mowing is part of that.
Also baking isn't cooking, they are two different things. Baking is a lot more chemistry than cooking is
As someone who cooked for a living, home cooking is fun! It's like making art, but you get to eat the art! And gardening isn't mowing a lawn, my plants are well kept and the process of seeing the effect of small changes you make to placement, water schedule, additives is like having a pet :)
Cooking for others is fun, I agree. I love baking for others myself. Even have my own chocolate chip cookie recipe that managed to impress the local grandma club.
I also think there's some confusion about American and European gardening, here mowing is just considered as much a part of taking care of a garden as is dealing with seedlings, etc. There's an expectation too, to keep proper plants apart from grass on your property, so gardening is much more chore-like here. Bushes are a popular alternative to fences, and those need trimming after all