Like you, I had several teachers. My earliest memories are of my mom teaching me - and she's still a very good cook. I used to spend time in the summer with my Grannie, and she too taught me quite a few things. When I was in my early 20s and just setting up my own household, she compiled a recipe book for me filled with family favorites - all handwritten by her on notebook paper and put into a 3-ring binder that she covered with fabric. It's been one of my prized possessions for years. :-)

I have to admit that I learned quite a bit in high school home economics class, although at the time I hated that class with a passion.

At our house, DH is our "official chef", and that suits me fine. While I know how to cook, it's never been something that I found particularly enjoyable. So I let him have at it. (Actually at times when I find myself in the kitchen about to prepare something on my own, he'll come in and just take over. Maybe that means he doesn't trust my abilities. ;-))

Not at home in the midwest, LOL. In my family a small bottle of tabasco sauce is considered a good wedding gift, because it will last for decades.

It helped to live a few years in Berkeley's gourmet ghetto plus having a Chinese and an Indian housemate who were patient at explaining their home-style cooking methods.

-Lena

Cooking kind of runs in the family. My grandmother cooked and cleaned for the super-rich summer people (you know the type, their "rustic summer cottages" are ten-bedroom mansions complete with ballrooms) on the island where she lived for much of her life, and my dad put himself through tech school cooking in various restaurants and he always talked about being an informal helper in the mess hall on a Naval Oceanographic ship that went to the South Pole. I don't think it occurred to Dad that I wouldn't grow up cooking. There are pictures of me at perhaps three years old cutting up soft things like bananas and cooked potatoes with a table knife, at 5 I was peeling potatoes and carrots. By 7 or 8 Dad trusted me with a sharp knife as long as it fit my hands - we had a paring knife that was almost identical to Dad's big chef's knife. By 12 I was cooking meals for my folks, learning how to throw things together without benefit of recipes and make a good meal out of "pantry scrapings", and reading cookbooks like novels. At 21 I was in culinary school. (Of course, my dad's notion of the purpose of children was "free labor"... weeding the garden, shoveling snow, peeling potatoes, etc. *chuckle*)

My mother would be a much better cook if she didn't smoke; her "recipes" (she's a chuck-it-together cook like me) are usually quite good but everything she makes tastes like it was cooked in an ashtray. :-( She sends us baked goods for the holidays and we either pass them on to friends who smoke and thus don't notice the "nicotine seasoning" or pitch them (ye gods I hope she's not reading this...).

My high school home economics class was sponsored by Crisco, and so everything we made contained a large amount of it. Ugh. I thought it was stupid and even then the thought of making a white sauce (which I already knew as Bechamel) with Crisco instead of butter made me want to gouge out my eyes.

My mom is not a cook. She always jokingly told people that when she married my father, she told him she could only "perform" in one room of the house and he didn't choose the kitchen. My grandmother, who took care of us while my mom worked, was also not a cook. When we were with her we lived on a staple of kosher bbq chickens (they come raw in bbq sauce and you cook - not too bad), "jewish pizza" (lender's bagel, american cheese and ketchup in the toaster - my sister LOVES this stuff, I had it without ketchup), tuna fish and cut up fruit (she did make a mean cut up fruit - in the days before you could get it cut at the supermarket. She also removed the seeds from watermelon for us before you could get seedless varieties).

My dad is a decent cook - really really good for basic stuff but when he tries to get fancy it tends to go south (he'd kill me if he read that but luckily he is internet illiterate). Either what he makes is great or not. Thank goodness we finally got him to stop adding additional poultry seasoning to already seasoned stuffing cubes last thanksgiving, choking that down was rough. He was a short order cook in his younger years so his things like breakfast and sandwiches are OUT OF THIS WORLD good.

So I learned some basic techniques and breakfast type stuff from my dad. I learned what NOT to do from my mom (except for tomato sauce and meatballs and lasagna, which she makes once a year on christmas eve). That got me pretty much through college at which point I discovered FoodTV and most of the rest of what I know I learned from there. It's kind of scary how much I have learned from there actually.

Hands down the best instructional personality is Alton Brown. He explains the science behind food and I am the type of person where if I understand HOW something works, it becomes a part of my knowledge base. If I am just learning by rote, I will never remember beyond a couple of days. I have found his tips and techniques to be extremely accessible (except for some of his wacked out stuff like making jerky using box fans and furnace filters - but I would never make jerky anyway) and I like that he also discusses the right tools for the job - something that is often overlooked. He is also easy on the eyes for those who love geeks. :D

I also love Tyler Florence and use his recipes lots... I like his format for his "Ultimate" show where he takes one dish (or menu) and just does it REALLY well. His recipes are always a hit from the more basic stuff to the more elaborate.

I also really enjoy Ina Garten - although I do not use her recipes as much as others because they are very very rich, I find her very accessible and encouraging and her techniques easy to pick up and master and her recipes are DIVINE. She is great for special occasions.

Other shows have really helped too and a lot of the "challenge shows" gave me enough confidence to design and decorate my son's first birthday cake... by watching the techniques it wasn't so hard.

I also have lots of cookbooks and especially like the chatty ones with lots of background info. For thanksgiving my go-to is Thanksgiving 101. Nowadays I tend to use the internet more because I can compare lots of different recipes and sort of pick and choose and come up with something on my own. I also love sites (like foodtv.com and recipezaar) that include reviews and comments - I will read 100+ reviews before starting a dish because of all of the great tips in there about how to make it better.

My mother opened cans, combined the contents, heated it all up and somehow we survived. Great person, but her tastebuds are in her feet.

After college, I worked at a publishing company (Time-Life Books) that paid reimbursements for various classes--100% for academic stuff, 75% for anything that related to the job, and so on. So I took cooking classes at various places around DC. I thought I'd meet guys. I did, but they were all gay. Except for my husband, but I didn't meet him in cooking class.

It was just what we did in my home. My mom cooked and loved trying new recipes, experimenting with ethnic dishes in the 60's long before we all became foodies so I developed a willingness to try new things quite young. My grandmother lived with us and she cooked old school, old country, nothing goes to waste, plus she was an extraordinary baker. Both of them had me as 'helper' as soon as I could reach things standing on a stool. I did take Home Ec in school and probably learned things but I was already quite comfortable in the kitchen by then.

My mom often took cookbooks to bed with her for reading instead of a novel - she could taste the food as she read the recipe and made notes on changes to make.

The things I didn't learn at home were how to put together a casserole - we never ate them because my father disliked them and how to make spaghetti and sauce, again because he didn't care for it. It wasn't until I was in college and cooking regularly for myself that I learned how to do either.

I started making meatballs with my Italian grandmother when I was 4. Some things I learned from her, some from my mom, and some from my mother in law. Most has been trial and error, and watching food network and altering recipes. I love to cook.

I learned some from my mother (mostly observation), from reading cookbooks (especially Fannie Farmer), and from one of my sisters who is a good cook (and how did she learn? I don't know). My mother was able to make dishes that tasted pretty good, but she was not that interested in cooking and tended to make very plain things. We never had olive oil or good vinegar or much in the way of interesting spices around the house (though that was probably true for most Americans in the 1960s and 70s), and we used a lot of margarine. My mother did like to bake yeast bread, and I learned a lot about that from her.

When I was 17, I was living at home and going to college, and I cooked dinner most nights for the family just because I enjoyed doing it. I would even cook meat, even though I didn't eat it (and still don't).

I do both the throw-it-together type of cooking and the carefully-following-a-recipe type of cooking. I still like to read cookbooks, though excessively fussy and trendy recipes (see any from Martha Stewart!) seem like a waste of time to me.

Hmm... I didn't.

I've said it before how I don't care to cook. So many other things I'd rather do but it's a part of life. Most days until we both get home from work and the gym it's almost 7:30. I don't want to spend the rest of the night cooking and eating late.

DH and I have a system where we take turns. He doesn't mind cooking. Usually whichever one cooks the other cleans up. This works well for us thankfully.

My Mom was a decent cook but wasn't a real foodie if that makes any sense. I never watched Mom cook but I did learn to bake stuff from scratch, and I enjoy baking, but we can't eat cake and cookies all the time.

Cook books - I can read ...but.... again, see my opening sentences. :) This is honestly an area I'm fighting with right now. We eat a lot of the same things and really need to start getting a little more variety.

I'm learning.

I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner and I'm excited about that. I like to do it if it's a special occasion.

Junior high school Home Economics classes and a Betty Crocker cookbook.

I never knew that you had to learn how to cook. Learn recipes, yes, but the basics of cooking were part of just growing up. Until...
Julia Child. That's how I learned that if you knew the technique, you could create your own recipes. Furthermore, as Julia said, "you're alone in the kitchen..." so you can recover from cooking disasters and no one would know.

I didn't learn at home, my Mom was a fair to average cook but I never spent anytime watching - or helping! My Dad had a few dishes he made (chicken chow mein & lasagna come to mind) but he didn't encourage participation or helping.

My sisters all enjoy cooking and we share recipes & ideas so most of my interest and inspiration comes from them. One BIL is a big time foodie & cook so I've learned alot from him.

I've also done 3 non-credit cooking courses at CIA in Hyde Park NY. It's a 2.5 hr drive from my home with a start time of 9 am, for 3 Saturday's in a row. Then you work like a dog until 1 pm, have lunch, then clean up and leave at 3. Once the Chef had real CIA students in to do the clean up - that was my favorite course! The courses were fun but exhausting. I'd come home telling my husband about all this great food we made but be too full and too tired for dinner with him.

I've done some 1 time classes at the local community college & some restaurants. I read about 3-4 cooking magazines a month. None of my friends are really into cooking so I enjoy being the "expert" among the group.

I used to watch the food network but now whenever I flip by that channel it's yet another cake competition or Iron chef. They don't interest me. The shows that do interest me, but not enough to learn when they're actually on, are Barefoot Contessa & Alton Brown. Everything I ever made from Giada's show has been a disappointment.

My foodie BIL has a high-chair set up in their kitchen and he puts my 2 yo niece in it while he cooks. He explains what, why, how, & even lets her help. We refer to it as the observation chair. I can't wait to see if she turns into a foodie/cook or goes against the tide, as kids often do with their parent's interests.

I love to read, collect books and like to cook. I taught myself by reading. Once in awhile I'll catch a TV cooking show...

My mom was a good cook but she was poor and could stretch a meal like no other where as I tend to spend good money on my ingredients. LOL!

I love different foods. I'll try most anything. Love hot and spicy foods, curries, greek, Thai, etc. I love it all and can cook most kinds of food too. I love making reduction sauces, like balsamic vinegar with rosemary, cooked just below boiling until it gets thick and sweet. The twins would eat this with a spoon if you turned your back. They go for it with their finger, forgetting whatever the sauce is smothering. I always send them home some.

Just last weekend, my DH told me I was a "very good cook." I took that as a real compliment since his own Italian mother and aunt live to cook.

I am not much of baker. I can make a good cheesecake, a great chocolate cake (buttermilk and coffee make it moist and rich) but I don't do cookies, etc. I do make dog treats sometimes...

I learned from watching my mom, my Nana and both of my great-grandmothers. My Aunt is a pastry chef and makes the most amazing deserts. She studied in France. I still pick her brain anytime I'm over.

I think I took for granted what wonderful cooks I had in my family until I met DH's family. His mom is the worst but she admits that cooking is not her forte' and she's fine w/ that which makes me fine w/ that. DH never liked steak until he was 21 and a friend made him try one in a restaurant.

I realize now that not everyone cooks like my family and from scratch too. They never taught me per se' and I learned ALOT on my own and from Epicurious. But I also realize I absorbed alot from my family.

I also have my Betty Crocker cookbook perm. on my counter.

kgwlisa, have you noticed how thin Alton's gotten? I've been watching the new season's shows and "The Next Iron Chef" and he looks so gaunt we were wondering if he'd been ill! He wasn't even heavy to begin with, but he went a little overboard on the dieting.

According to an article in the LA Times, he's thinking about killing off the show at the end of the next season, claiming he's "too old for the youngsters" (he's all of 47, positively ancient *eyeroll*) and "you just can't ask an audience to stick with something that long" which is a crock - if the show's good, people WILL keep watching (how many years was Julia Child on the air?), and he's still getting good ratings so obviously people are watching... I mean, he could just be honest and say "I just don't feel like doing it anymore, I'm bored and I think I've done all I want to do with this" if that's the way he feels about it and while I'd be intensely disappointed it's his life to do with as he pleases. (Although personally, I'd rather see him do more "Good Eats" rather than hosting "Iron Chef America"/"Next Iron Chef", since he doesn't really add that much to those shows.)

If Food Network goes to crap the way HGTV did I shall be very depressed, and I see inklings of that already. I've been a Food Network watcher since the early, early days - anyone remember David Rosengarten's "Taste"? That was my favorite show, the set was as minimalist as could be and it was filmed with one or maybe two cameras, but it was about the FOOD, not the production values (or Giada di Laurentiis' boobs). I adored "Melting Pot", in which each day of the week was hosted by two chefs from a certain part of the world, like Eastern Europe or Latin America, who did their ethnic thing, and I will always mourn the loss of "Two Fat Ladies" (as well as Jennifer Paterson herself) - although that wasn't technically a FN show, it was BBC and I wonder why they stopped getting the BBC shows like the various Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson (who could out-foodporn Giada any day!) ones.

And enough already with these d@mn competition/reality shows ("Next Iron Chef", "Next Food Network Star", "Chopped", etc.). There's just too many of them and it's getting boring.

What a great thread.

We have a larger family and when our Mom started working back in the late 60's, cooking dinner became the responsibility of me and my older sister. We took turns alternating weeks and the only lessons we had was what we had learned from watching our Mom when she would cook. I felt so bad for our father though as he was essentially the guinea pig. If something tasted badly he never let on. I was 10 and still have the Betty Crocker cookbook I got as a gift a few years after that.

I experimented on my husband.

Luckily he isn't big on meat, dislikes steak and BBQ, ect. Most of our food is made from vegetables. This week, we have only eaten vegetable stews, vegetable casseroles, salads, and a multigrain oatmeal. We also eat a lot of beans and nuts.

I was always told that cooking things destroys the vitamins and enzymes, so we eat mostly raw during the summer. In the winter, it is hard to resist something hot though.

My mom started the ball rolling. She worked part time and would often leave notes as to what to do to get such and such started for dinner. Even though we lived in the midwest in the 50s/60s where food was ultimately fairly boring she was always trying something new. Add a year, or was it 2, of Home Ec and the seed was planted.

I go through phases where I enjoy cooking more than at other times. In the warmer months I like to keep it simple. This time of year I'm more open to experimentation. Have a dh who will try anything and is always complimentary ... even when my own critical voice isn't.

JM, I loved early Food TV ... Taste and Too Hot Tamales were favorites. Even Emeril before he got an audience.

Mari, I noticed the same thing. I think he looks better a little more filled out and now his signature style of those vintagey looking short sleeve shirts hang on him like a scarecrow. Even clothing that looks like it should be tailored is too big for him. I'm not sure what is up with that.

I admit I haven't caught many recent episodes, I watch maybe an hour or two of tv a week but enough to have seen him post weight loss. Did you see the 10th anniversary special? What a disappointment. That's an hour of my life I'll never get back.

I enjoyed the previous season of Next Food Network Star (not the last one but the one before) and really connected with a lot of the contestants... but this last season, eh. Same for next Iron Chef - I could not care less who wins or who doesn't. I have seen only a couple of episodes of chopped. Like all networks they take what was a good "special" and beat it into oblivion.

hhireno, a friend of my mom's takes classes at the CIA (i think he does the week long classes) and he said he plans to gain 10 lbs for that class. We live about a half hour from there but have never even been there for lunch. I have an 18 month old that would never sit in a chair and watch me do anything. We are getting him a play kitchen for christmas in hopes that he will play with his stuff and not so much with what I'm trying to work with (now that he is tall enough to reach pretty far in the counters). Although if I am lucky he will pretend to stir the soup and slurp it for a few minutes while I get something done.

I guess I learned a certain amount from my Mom and a certain amount from opening up a cookbook and giving stuff a try.

I loved baking as a child and always took the opportunity to try to make cookies, cakes, and that sort of stuff. My Mom was born to a farm family that already had 3 older girls killing chickens, making them up into dinner, baking pies, and all sorts of good stuff. She was told to run along and pick field peas or something. In other words, she didn't spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen. So when she got married/had children, she had a repertoire of things she made but didn't bake at all. She thought packaged cookies, instant pudding, and hamburger helper were heaven sent.

My mom excelled at cooking fresh vegetables, rice, chicken & dumplings, ham with red-eye gravy, cornbread, liver with onions, and pork chops. No baking. No real recipes. And our chicken was almost always boiled. As in, a platter of boiled chicken sitting on the table with a pot of rice on the side, maybe some collard greens or fried okra to serve with it. Iced tea was Nestea Instant.

Well, when I got married, I had the basics, but started reading the cookbooks I got for my wedding. And I guess I learned to cook pretty much the way I learned to sew. I had a very basic sewing class my freshman year and learned how to read a pattern, operate the machine, and choose fabric. In my cooking class that same year, I learned a few more basics. But just as I see something I want to have, like maybe some attached-valance drapes with fringe trim, and I go over-take a look and figure it out, I've done that same thing with cooking. I eat something great at a restaurant, I start looking for the recipe and tweak it till it tastes like the dish I had. And I was in my twenties before I figured out the secret to great iced tea, and it wasn't in a jar of Nestea!

I've watched maybe a handful of cooking shows ever. I prefer to cook by reading and following directions.

Red

Was I supposed to have learned how to cook by now? I'm only 44. I still have time.

That being said, I'm good at following directions, so recipes are a must for me. Where I break down is at the grocery store when I see the cost for the 13 (different) ingredients that seem to be needed for each dish.

The funniest part? We're redoing the kitchen. Not be cause my inner Julia Child needs to soar, but because it was ugg-leee!

I'm with jakabedy (and I'm 41).

Having kids kind of forces the issue, though, so I'm learning a bit on my own, but I certainly don't enjoy it.

Haven't learned yet. It's weird - I'm a science teacher so you think I'd like it since it's like doing an experiment from a lab manual. My mother cooked lots but man, was it gross!

My oven temp's been "off" since we moved into our house (12 years ago) I finally got it fixed last month. How bad is that?

My Mom taught me. Her Mom didnt cook although her dad did. She made sure we all could cook.

My mom threw-the-cans-together cooking, too. So, that is what I did forever. It's great while the kids are around, but I've been thinking lately of 'really' learning to cook.

I watched one episode of Julia Child on some special PBS thing the other day, and I was amazed. I realized I know nothing (except how to open cans to keep from starving).

Trail and error. My mother could sort of cook, but was much better at baking. She also hated cooking and never wanted witnesses to her swearing at the ingredients. Mostly canned cream of chicken soup and Spam, LOL. So she never taught me a thing.

My historic idea of cooking is something along the lines of the late lamented Peg Bracken. Remember her? Find, and dust off your casserole dish and read a good book . . .

I learned to cook real food under fire when, aged 21 and post-college, I moved into a community house where we all took turns at cooking evening meals. For 14 people and all committed foodies! They suffered initially, but miraculously escaped food-poisoning. When I married, I learned to scale the recipes down, but I still tend to cook in bulk and freeze.

I still can't bake, I do wish my mother had taught me, but I am really good at healthy veggie food (that was a phase but a good one) and non-veggie but quite healthy stews, soups and casseroles.

That said, I love Alton Brown and Top Chef and, in retirement, have recently got more inventive and thoughtful about cooking.

It is a process.

pesky1....I want your fried chicken recipe!!!! Yes......really. :0) Please post it. I'm still learning!

Learned to cook some things by watching my mom, cook books like Fannie Farmer,cooking shows,copying restaurant food! I worked as a fry cook/assistant manager to a restaurant for 3 months one summer before I started college.
I cook everything from scratch....most of the time....excluding tortillas,egg roll wrappers or grinding my own flour. :0) But I'm always looking for a new recipe or a new way of cooking an old item, like fried chicken..;0)

My mother did not cook much because most of her family was ungrateful for her efforts. She really did not provide many new foods to try and in her defense, she often worked 2 jobs so the kitchen was the last thing on her mind.

I on the other hand loved food from the very beginning. I would not let her eat Kraft Mac and Cheese when she was pregnant with me and I never could stand it afterwards either. So I learned how to cook. Sometimes I would try to find the most impressive things for the accolades. I would go off on tangents and I do make my own bread (with wheat I have ground, sounds impressive but I dump it in the machine and come back later for the flour). I have tried many, many different techniques etc.

I sit down with cookbooks and read them like novels. Some favorites are by Crescent Dragonwagon and the Moosewood cookbooks. We are changing the way we eat so I am learning how to modify old favorites into sensible alternatives. I have loved publications such as Cook's Illustrated that give me information on why to do things and Fine Cooking has often been a fave as well. One thing that I am still working on learning is how to organize my time better in the kitchen but that is coming with practice.

I grew up on hot dogs with cheese and crescent rolls, fish sticks and french fries. No Hamburger Helper - my mom would brown the meat, pour in a can of gravy, and mix it with egg noodles. Spaghetti was browned meat, add a jar of sauce, when the noodles were mushy drain them then mix in with the sauce in large pot - even mushier the next day reheated! We used to joke that Mom knew something was done when it boiled over.

I took my mom's Good Housekeeping cookbook to college (summer after freshman year when I moved into apt). I learned to make killer mashed potatoes (sour cream and egg) from a roommate - we ate a lot of meatloaf - and also started *topping* the spaghetti with sauce instead of mixing it in the pot. I then progressed to meatballs ;-)

Never having learned the terminology, I did mess up a few times - like when the gazpacho recipe called for a clove of garlic and I put in a whole head. But live and learn - I acquired more cookbooks, watched TV (The Frugal Gourmet was a favorite), and bought exotic ingredients like olive oil and spices (other than black pepper and garlic salt/onion salt which are still the only items in my mom's pantry).

I'm still not great at cooking fish other than salmon or shellfish, and I can't seem to get everything done at the same time (thank goodness for rice cookers and crock pots) unless I use frozen veggies and nuke them. DD is so picky that I haven't even tried cooking any "ethnic" food in 4-5 years, though I will still make things like seafood for the rest of us and just give her a sandwich or hot dog. But we're pretty much grilled meat and rice/pasta now (she won't eat potatoes - though I make sweet potatoes for the rest of us, throw white potatoes in slow cooker for "coq sans vin"). Neither of my kids will eat casseroles, though I used to make a mean moussaka.

My grandma was a baker - but she didn't tend to write things down, when she did recipes were either incomplete or multiple versions. I did write down a couple (and have modified them to be healthier) when I was watching her. At least I learned from her to keep your pastry dough cold and handle it as little as possible to keep it tender!

I've caught Alton Jones a few times when we had cable, enjoyed his approach. I also read Bakewise cover to cover in one night and would like to find Cookwise.