You can buy boiled potatoes? Neelix always had the usual suspects in bowls, meaning rambutan and star fruits to look like alien produce.
More fire doesn't equal faster cooking though. And what surprised me was this wasn't wok style cooking where you're moving the food constantly, stuff would be left on it's own over those huge fires.
Or he was trying to scare the humans from taking over his kitchen by making it all look too overcomplicated, to ensure job security?
That's what he did in Rise. And it worked! One lever on the thing, goes up and down. "How do we make the space elevator go up???"
He just wanted to be needed. Maybe he over-compensates? I always liked that episode where he's so desperate to get the map for the unknown expanse he gets into the dodgy drug deal. Poor guy (Neelix, I mean).
He was scared of being tossed off the ship and having to live from salvage find to salvage find again. Voyager was an incredible 10 star luxury resort to him.
Being needed by Kathryn was as close as Neelix could imagine to that beautiful woman loving him romantically.
The closest and snuggliest Kes and Neelix were ever together is when they were watching TV together in Futures End. B'Elanna and Tom as well in Memorial. Relationships need TV to work, and last.
Intimacy is about doing nothing together, which is why most married people are happiest when they're asleep.