| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/4/2008 10:05:32 AM | | I actually learned by reading the Better Homes red cookbook. Momma wasn't the greatest cook in the world but what she did cook well was scrumptious. But, she would NOT teach either my sister nor I to cook. SO.....when my Sis gave me this cookbook as a gift one year, I taught myself. My cooking is just plain down home country food. But, its very good. I taught my oldest daughter before she moved out. Now, she's a great cook. My youngest daughter, unfortunately, didn't want to learn until recently. And she lives 3 hours away. So I send her alot of email recipes and assist over the phone. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/4/2008 2:24:49 PM | | Well, I didn't really learn most of my cooking from my mom like many would, although I did learn to slice a potato fast by watchin mom...I learned by watching aunts and friends and such..kinda self taught....Usually all my friend cook well so i learn a tip or recipe from each one...Read a lot of recipe books too... | |
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mosin
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Joined: 12/1/2008
Msg: 203 | |
| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/4/2008 7:23:43 PM | | I learned as a young child by hanging around in the kitchen. That's where all of the fun and treats were. If you were in there though, then you had to help (& help clean up as well. Hah!). Parents, grandmothers, babysitters, I learned from them all. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/5/2008 11:31:51 AM | I was 11 my mom bought a set of those recipe cards that came out around then anyone remember? the pictures were on the front of each card and the recipe was on the back, I loved that box of recipes...mom was gratful for the help(she had 8 kids) I took to cooking like a little duck to water later age 26 I took a chefes coarse but my best/favorite recipes come from everyday salt of the earth folk who willingly shared their family recipes over a nice cuppa tea,good bless them. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/5/2008 12:36:24 PM | | My X husband was/is a Fine Dining Chef, and I used to go work with him all the time, and travel to high dollar places all over the United States, and we worked with a lot of famous Chefs. It is the one good thing I did get from my marriage...especially since I live on the Atkins diet!! I make all of my own sauces, salad dressings, soups, stocks, not to mention I LOVE doing all of it. And I know what is being put in the food I eat. It has also really changed the way I shop, and I spend a lot of money on good food. But it beats eating porrly, and I can make it last a long time. The most fun of all of it was meeting all the chefs we see on tv, and spending time in their kitchens, and learning things I would never have gotten to see. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/10/2008 11:49:59 AM | I learned from my Baba and Jeff Smith. I just picked up stuff when I was a kid, and learned how to do it later. The "how" in a recipe is much easier to understand than the "why", but once you understand the "why", you control the "how".
That's my philosophy lesson for the day. It sounds stupid, but it's very true. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/10/2008 3:19:20 PM | I have always included my Son in meal preparation & cooking - at 14 years of age he is now very competant in the kitchen & cooks for me & his friends when they visit - must say I LOVE getting home from work, walking through the door & smelling dinner cooking for us - makes life so much easier  | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/13/2008 11:59:36 PM | | My Baci. The best cook, evah. She fed nine kids with practically nothing and never uttered a complaint. It was a labor of love for her, and she never measured anything. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/14/2008 12:05:05 AM | My girlfriends taught me to cook and to set a fabulous table for a dinner party. One was a Cordon Bleu chef and the other had the most exquisite taste. I was very lucky and I'm grateful.
My ex is also an excellent cook and taught me quite a bit - the most important bit of advice was to always peel away from me, not towards me. Bet he regrets that now.. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/14/2008 5:22:06 PM | I started cooking when I was really young. Age 6 to be exact. My uncle (who was my father figure) was a BIG guy and was always cooking. So I would pull up a stool and watch him and help as a youngin'. So I've been cooking since I was 6, fell in love with cooking at age 6, and would watch cooking shows over cartoons as a child ANYDAY!
Now I spend a lot of my time watching the food network (When I have cable) and roaming the net for new recipes. =) | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/14/2008 8:01:08 PM | | I was a newbie to the Air Force in 1988 and chow hall dining was my required fare. For the most part it was fairly nutricious but bland. Then came the potato fiasco...baked potatoes were offered and wow, they were over-cooked raisin bag little things...yet they still served them and expected them to be consumed. I decided right there if I was ever in a place with my own kitchen I was going to cook. A year or so later I was married and had my own kitchen and so it began...I did all the cooking, frequent phone calls to mom about how to make the comfort foods I grew up with and BAM....(not like Emeril) I was cooking...been doing it and enjoying it ever since. With the introduction of the internet, my cooking skills progressed immensely as well as the information and the variety of ingredients and their uses. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/14/2008 10:30:32 PM | | when i was young i always used to watch my grandmother cook..i used to sit on the counter tops everyday to watch her..the first thing i learned how to cook was beef Stroganoff | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/15/2008 7:52:03 AM | i've always been interested in food and was fortunate enough to get into an unrelated career that affords a lot of time off so i decided to bite the bullet and enrolled in a basic cooking course. after the first class, i got the sense that the instructor was just pandering to dilettantes and figured "if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right" so i signed up for culinary school/chef training during evenings/weekends. the program took just under 2 yrs and i learned as much from my classmates as the instructors since most were already working in restaurants while attending school in order to complete their red seal designation. after completing the program i wanted to prove to myself that i could turn and burn in a restaurant setting so i worked part-time at a couple of different fine dining establishments(while continuing to plug away at my primary career). it's been a fantastic experience but i've realized i'm too much a creature of comforts to get into it as a career. if you've worked double shift and gotten crushed during service, you know what i'm talking about....paradoxically the "rush" of getting slammed during service is also what kept me coming back from more.
in my industry i run into a lot of people who forget what it's like to actually work for a living so i found the (commercial) kitchen to be a very "honest" working environment with tangible metrics for success; without the blatant parlor games of office cronyism(to an extent) and preponderance of people who have failed their way upwards. that is to say- regardless of your background it's possible to excel if you can hustle and are good at your craft (or rather- it's impossible to excel if you're all talk and can't deliver) whereas in many other workplaces that's not the case. another aspect of the nature of the work i find quite satisfying is that your mettle is constantly tested in real-time where the clock is ticking, things are approaching some resolution(for better or worse), and it's up to you to conjure up the acceptable outcome as a result of your own actions. there aren't many times in our day to day lives ("of quiet desperation" to borrow from thoreau) where this is the case. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/17/2008 8:13:52 AM | | i've been cooking most of my life, then i went to culinary school and got a degree in cooking/baking/garnishing. and yet i do tree work and drive a snowplow, interesting what happens when you don't want to move to new york, california, or florida to get a good cooking job. i was thinking of opening a catering business after income tax return. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/17/2008 4:51:34 PM | Part of this explanation is quite comical if you think about it.
First of all, I was fortunate to grow up in a household where even though my parents divorced, my mother made sure that we were provided what we needed; including, a housekeeper that cooked us meals regularly except on the weekends which would usually entail Saturday night going to Little Caesar's Pizza and Sunday was take-out chinese food. The housekeeper cooked homemade meals prepared Monday through Friday and dinner time was exactly at 5:30 on the dot where we sat, my two sisters and I and our mother for family dinner.
I remember that my mother could NOT cook worth anything and usually burned EVERYTHING; including, the chocolate chip cookies and steaks on the grill. It wasn't until I was a grown adult living on my own and tasting a medium rare steak that I realized that a steak was SUPPOSED to look and taste scrumptious like that. (My mother's version looked like a burnt, dried out black shoe..lol)
When I was leaving for Ohio to attend college, I remember asking the housekeeper to not only show me how to cook some of the items that she prepared, but also how to do laundry because I didn't want to be embarrassed in college going to the coin laundry with all the other students and NOT knowing how to do my own laundry. (I probably would have sent my laundry out to a dry cleaning establishment to do it for me-NO KIDDING.)
So, to wrap this up, I have become a rather wonderful cook and baker, (if I do say so myself..patting self on back) and usually have no complaints for those that I cook for.
That's my story and, I'm stickin' to it..lol
OH...and if I've been redundant and repeated myself on this thread, I can't remember. I tell everyone that I gave my brain cells to my children. LOL
~~Beth~~ | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/17/2008 6:14:19 PM | Blessed with 2 things - a Grandmother who could take whatever :
a. was already around
b. in season
c. that Grandpa got hunting or fishing
and make it reeealy good with me watching , and my own 'common realizin' .
95% of the failures have been a bad/old ingredient or too much/in a hurry .
Like Emeril sez , "We ain't buildin' a rocket ship" and "Use your knobs " .
jazzy75149- the Better Homes red cookbook.
Since the kitchen bible ^^ , the internet is the greatest thing to happen for home cooks . | |
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