In article >,
"Kswck" > wrote:

> Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your own?
>
> Mom boiled every veggie to death. Figure ALL pork must be cooked in a fry
> pan covered with mustard and sauerkraut, till it's dead, beef so rare it
> would moo and chicken ONLY in a pressure cooker, or Shake-N-Bake.
> (Don't get me started on her soups-she believed food was to keep you
> alive...taste? 'You want that too? Why?').
>
> Learned on my own.

Your mom sounds a lot like my mom. My mom used to cook vegetables either
barely cooked or burnt and everything was either canned or frozen;
rarely fresh. Main courses ranged from overdone baked chicken to boiled
steak. My mom never liked to cook, and the results showed it. When my
dad wasn't home for dinner, my mom always ordered pizza for delivery or
she took me and my sister out to eat.

When I was a kid, the mother of my best friend was a fantastic cook.
They lived across the street and they invited me over for dinner
frequently. She made everything from scratch. She also baked cakes and
cookies that were to die for. I learned from that family that home
cooking can be so much better than what my mom made, even though my mom
meant well and she did her best.

To preserve my taste buds, I taught myself to cook at an early age. I
was nine when I started to make dinner for my parents and my sister.
Sometimes, I watched my friend's mom, but she was one of those people
who hated people watching her cook, so mostly, I watched TV cooking
shows. I learned a lot of cooking techniques from the Frugal Gourmet.

All through high school, I used to make an elaborate dinner from scratch
once a week, like whole chicken with stuffing, a stir fry, or roast
beef, chicken parmesan, with one or two green vegetables, baked bread,
etc. We are not dessert eaters, so I never got into making desserts.

It didn't take long for my sister to realize that she could learn to
cook from me, so I showed her what I learned. My sister has different
tastes then me. I was never big on salads and green vegetables, which
are and were some of my sister's favorites, so she learned to make them.

So for a lot of family dinners such as Thanksgiving, my sister and I
would team up when we were kids and make the dinner. My sister would
make the side dishes and a big green salad. I would make the main course
dishes. As I recall, it was my sister who was the first of us to make
lasagna, and boy was it good! She used to make dishes with lots of fall
vegetables, which I am not big of, but my dad loved that stuff. My dad
makes those kinds of things now that he has to cook for him and my mom,
because my mom doesn't do the cooking any more due to health problems.