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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Dec 4, 2018 14:15:49 GMT -5
But your story is awesome! You just were always in it because you have a foodie family. My mom was always into food and cooking and when I was a kid she was always on some project or another: homemade bagels, homemade ice cream, homemade pasta (the pasta machine I use now is hers, from the late 70s). I grew up being the "weird kid" who brought HOMEMADE bread to school and as a kid I gave her shit about why can't I just have Wonderbread like all the other kids? So she always looked at her cooking as just this weird thing she did and not that it could have benefit on me that I'd appreciate. So she was kind of surprised when I came down that Godfather day and I asked to make sauce for dinner that night. She humored me but I don't think she realized how serious I was taking it until much later. And I've been sure to tell her over and over again that she's where it all came from and that the big reason I cook now is because I want my kids to have those same warm memories about special meals and foods they loved growing up. Even now, my dad's #1 priority is what we're having for dinner. I'm just happy I grew up in a family that made mealtime fun and accessible. So many people I know (women especially) do not have this frame of reference. I remember being made fun of for bringing what I considered innocuous leftovers for lunch to school, lasagna or kebabs and couscous or a Cuban sandwich because it was "weird," and now I see some of those same kids who made fun of me proudly showing off their Blue Apron meals on Instagram. Who's weird now, motherfuckers?! (It's still me.) |
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Post by ganews on Dec 4, 2018 14:33:06 GMT -5
I remember being made fun of for bringing what I considered innocuous leftovers for lunch to school, lasagna or kebabs and couscous or a Cuban sandwich because it was "weird," and now I see some of those same kids who made fun of me proudly showing off their Blue Apron meals on Instagram. Who's weird now, motherfuckers?! (It's still me.) Wifemate is a serious fan of My Big Fat Greek Wedding for a lot of reasons that hit her close to home, one of them being that childhood lunchroom scene. |
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Post by Hachiman on Dec 4, 2018 23:50:23 GMT -5
My parents are both weird and infrequent cooks. They were able to occasionally cook some good food, but for the most part cooking wasn't their thing so family meals were actually infrequent. My sister and I actually blame most of our weight issues on this since we were forced to fend for ourselves. We often didn't have lunch for school or lunch money and my dad refused to apply for free lunch since it was embarrassing and also would have revealed he made too much and was simply terrible with money and familial priorities. On top of this, we were Seventh-Day Adventists, so we often ate weird and disgusting vegetarian food at a time before people figured out how to make it appetizing. My relationship to food for a long time was not good so I often ate too much junk because it tasted good, nobody cared, and I wasn't used to it so had no sense of moderation.
What started me on the right track was taking home ec. in junior high, where I did very well because I was the only kid in my thoroughly upper-middle class school who actually wanted to know how to wash and repair my clothes and cook a meal that tasted good since my parents did both of those things so rarely. I actually learned cooking was fun and enjoyed making things that my friends would eat and enjoy.
The other big influence was my best friend's mom, who is a hell of a cook and also a second mom to me. I grew to be a fixture at their house at mealtimes and still spend the occasional holiday there. She always made us do some of the prep work or help with mundane tasks like stirring or watching something simmer, which really helped me get a lot of fundamentals. These people saved my life. I think to myself I need to call them more than I think of calling my birth-family. I need to send them all Christmas cards.
The really big breakthrough though was probably when I first came to Japan. I had to learn how to cook with only a single burner, base ingredients, and zero counter space. There were no shortcuts then and its only slightly better now, but when I came back to the US it was like I cooking was permanently set to "easy mode" for me. I mean, you have 4 burners and an oven! And that's not all. You can buy pre-made ingredients like, say, pizza dough and pizza sauce so you don't have to make every single component of your dish. There are shortcuts all around and all sorts of breads for sandwiches, soups and curries. Even sauce and marinade mixes! I still cook from scratch, but going to the States I always think "Who wouldn't cook with all of these delicious and healthy options?"
So, I cook for a lot of reasons and I am good at it, but my main drive is still making sure my kids have proper nutrition and a better relationship to food then I did growing up.
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Baron von Costume
TI Forumite
Like an iron maiden made of pillows... the punishment is decadence!
Posts: 4,683 
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Post by Baron von Costume on Dec 20, 2018 0:42:57 GMT -5
Heh I somehow missed this thread My parents both came from pretty questionable households culinary-speaking. My mother's family is wasp to the core, my grandmother being a war-bride/grandfather being a farmboy who'd never cook. My dad's side was basically "poor indian from up north" where food where when my grandparents were growing up food was what you hunted and spices weren't really a thing, though by the time my dad was 5 they were here in the city and doing slightly better food wise. Somehow my parents became relatively adventurous eaters though and the food scene here has always been better than you'd expect (though it's only really in my lifetime that it's really broadened.) Basically as soon as they could get away with my parents were taking me to 'authentic' chinese places when all my friends thought chinese was just chicken balls in sweet and sour sauce. There's a hole in the wall dim sum joint downtown here that my mom often took me to on days when I had to hang at her office on inservices or after a dentist appointment. I've had at least 10 times in my adult life that someone has told me "there's this great place I discovered you'll never have heard of" about that place. Thanks Mom  One of my earliest cooking memories was of making rosette cookies with mom and being fascinated by the frying. I'd help here and there. When I was a bit older my mom got me this sciency cooking book (I've always been a nerd) at the cool bookstore near my doctor's office... trips to the doctor were always awesome cause I'd always get a book. It came with kid coloured measuring spoons and an apron I think and it wasn't much after that that I made my first family dinner (Basically just a barbecue sausage bake, but not bad for a kid my age.) My mom wasn't a super adventurous cook but we'd often try to find the more interesting things in the various old church cookbooks she had. In my teens I broadened more, I took home ec one year but never again as I found cooking with other people my own age stuuuupidly frustrating. By the time I graduated I was generally making dinner for the family a few times a week and as the internet became a thing started doing more and more interesting stuff. Like Liz I think it was meeting/hanging with other food types online that generally got me more hardcore into food from seeing what other folks do etc. Also during this era I had more disposable income now that I had a job and was occasionally trying out new cuisines, ditto having a car and getting to go to more obscure ethnic places downtown I wouldn't make it to often otherwise. Sometimes I'd come home and try and replicate those things, getting more successful once the internet was full of food sites of course. In my late 20s my mother and I started taking a cooking class together once or twice a year as a bonding thing and that's sort of brought us full circle heh. ---- Simultaneously, I'm almost 40 and I've never once dated a girl who can cook beyond KD/Toast level. It's kind of depressing. |
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Dec 22, 2018 14:25:06 GMT -5
I was just browsing through this thread, and had some revelations: 1) I literally have no idea how I kept myself fed from ages 19 to 30 something. I don't remember being taught how to cook anything; I mean, I would watch people cook, but that was pretty much the extent of my culinary education. I don't have the best relationship with food anyway, so apparently I just muddled along unless I found a recipe that sounded easy/cheap and made that. Which...explains a lot about how I think very little about eating the same thing for lunch every day for weeks. Oh wait, someone gave me a Southern Cooking cookbook, and I made precisely one recipe from it: sweet & sour chicken, which, as I recall, involved ketchup? My grandma was impressed by it, but I think she didn't know you could make Chinese food outside of a restaurant. My guess would be that I didn't really branch out until the internet made recipe browsing super easy and convenient. 2) Wait is Boomer is Liz n Dicksgiving 's mother? I thought she was another sister. 3) I just saw that Hachiman is former SDA and therefore totally understands the utter trauma of SDA vegetarian food I am subjected to when I go to Colorado cause the women my mother's age have never learned to make vegetarianism palateable. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jan 7, 2019 9:36:12 GMT -5
I was just browsing through this thread, and had some revelations: 1) I literally have no idea how I kept myself fed from ages 19 to 30 something. I don't remember being taught how to cook anything; I mean, I would watch people cook, but that was pretty much the extent of my culinary education. I don't have the best relationship with food anyway, so apparently I just muddled along unless I found a recipe that sounded easy/cheap and made that. Which...explains a lot about how I think very little about eating the same thing for lunch every day for weeks. Oh wait, someone gave me a Southern Cooking cookbook, and I made precisely one recipe from it: sweet & sour chicken, which, as I recall, involved ketchup? My grandma was impressed by it, but I think she didn't know you could make Chinese food outside of a restaurant. My guess would be that I didn't really branch out until the internet made recipe browsing super easy and convenient. 2) Wait is Boomer is Liz n Dicksgiving 's mother? I thought she was another sister. 3) I just saw that Hachiman is former SDA and therefore totally understands the utter trauma of SDA vegetarian food I am subjected to when I go to Colorado cause the women my mother's age have never learned to make vegetarianism palateable. Boomer is totally my mother. But she acts like a sister! |
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Post by Pastafarian on Jan 13, 2019 17:37:31 GMT -5
In a kindergarten (I think?) class a teacher brought in mushrooms and cooked them in butter on a hotplate. I'd never had them that way, the Portuguese generally don't use mushrooms in their cuisine. It was astounding to me! I came home and bugged my mom about it until she relented and bought some allowing me to cook some myself. I guess she figured a two ingredient recipe would be pretty hard to screw up. After that I was allowed to help "make" easy stuff, like Jello pudding, chocolate chip cookies etc. But those mushrooms stay with me still.
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Post by Hachiman on Jan 21, 2019 20:41:13 GMT -5
I was just browsing through this thread, and had some revelations: 3) I just saw that Hachiman is former SDA and therefore totally understands the utter trauma of SDA vegetarian food I am subjected to when I go to Colorado cause the women my mother's age have never learned to make vegetarianism palateable. Yeah, for being all about nutrition, most SDAs I have met are terrible cooks. My mom has been on the mend from a surgery and her church has been bringing her food since she's not super mobile. It sounds like things have improved, but still have a way to go, which makes me think, "Come one SDAs! Use the sinful, secular internet and learn the power of delicious vegan cooking! Just, uh, ignore all the other stuff." |
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