Once, my mother's brother asked me what software was, I said "for example, softwares were in my mobile phone", he said "open it, let me see it, can I touch it ?"
Tell him you can't open it cause the faries would escape. See, inside every mechanical device, there are many many fairies that float around and carry little pebbles that programmers like to call "bits." Software is basically a little radio recording that constantly plays on the faire's little ipods, telling them where to move the pebbles and, oh, if a green pebble happens to be on the right, then move the green one up. Then, the fairies from the computer tell the fairies from the minitor where to move the little color-coded pebbles inside the monitor (called "pixels") and that is how you see "Hello World!"
Eh the cooking analogy works better.
EDIT: Also, Richard Stallman is the head of the Fairy Union.