The first food I remember making was Roly-Polies when I was about four. It wasn't until about a year or two ago that my cousin discovered this snapshot of me making them. I'd roll out the scraps from my mother's pie crust between two sheets of waxed paper. Then I'd spread it with peanut butter and cinnamon/sugar, roll it up, slice, and put on a cookie sheet for my mom to bake. As an only child, I was my mom's sous chef (tipping beans, whipping cream, decorating cookies, etc.) and I learned a step at a time, always thinking it was fun. All the women in our family used to congregate at my aunt's house in the summer for a week or two of canning and freezing vast amounts of food for the year. I started as a tomato and peach skin peeler. My dad and two uncles had boats so cleaning fish and picking crabs was the beginning of my seafood cooking education. My friends and I used to make little stoves out of potato chip cans and coat hangers and have simple cookouts on them. We'd also wrap potatoes in clay and roast them in a bonfire while we were ice skating and things like that. My cooking skills progressed so that when my father was killed when I was 12 and my mother went to work full-time, I made most of the dinners for us. That's when I started experimenting with different kinds of soups and stews that could be heated up and eaten at any time. When I was 16, I acquired a stepfather who was a wonderful cook (although a little heavy on weird stuff like souse and blood pudding that I'd never seen made before). Around then, one of the grocery stores offered a 12-volume set of the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery and WOW, did my culinary adventures shift into high gear! We'd have a dinner of dishes from Denmark, followed by English jam tarts the next week. I was fortunate to have a roommate for my first college apartment who knew how to cook just about anything. While our classmates were eating ramen noodles and hot dogs, we were having tasty meals on the same budget. We also used to prepare venison and other game dinners for hunters at a set price per head, which was our first commercial cooking venture. So that's my youthful culinary history. Cooking has always seemed to be interwoven with other activities in my life but rarely played a major role in it.

Roast chicken or roast beef. I don't know when the last time I cooked a roast of beef but I do have one in my freezer. I miss the smell of waking up to bacon cooking. I cook my own so it is not the same as waking up to it. My Dad used to make a great breakfast for all of us kids on Sunday mornings and as soon as you smelled the bacon you woke up. LOL Anne

I don't know why I'm pouring my heart out here but yes, I do. I've become comfortable with people on this forum and have belonged here for a very long time. I live in an extremely remote place. Access to primary care physicians is a problem. Access to specialty care is spotty but Boston is only a few hours away. Not that I could make that drive for treatment myself. I have had excellent care at Cape Cod Hospital for breast cancer, rotator cuff surgery and numerous emergency care issues. I have an appointment next month for physical tests and to see a specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital/Harvard Medical School who saved my life a year ago (rare blood disorder.) I'm going to put myself in her hands once again. I did not have a positive experience or outcome with mental health professionals where I live. How the brain and body synchronize is puzzling to me. The body stops working so the brain says I'm with that too??

We buy boneless skinless chicken breast in packages of 3. I bake them and we have chix, with a couple of veggies one night. I use the other piece chopped on salad the next night or so. I add some kind of beans, fruit and nuts to all my salads. Such as garbanzo, pinto, black beans, cranraisins, mandarin orange slices, walnuts, roasted pumpkin seeds. Adds a lot of healthy ingredients. I also use a healthy packaged salad mix with cabbage and kale. Same with pasta sauce. Makes at least two dinners. I usually use a jar sauce to one pound of ground beef. I add extra spices. Hubby eats it over pasta, I usually eat mine over roasted cauliflower. Use the leftover sauce for stuffed bell pepper with mozzarella melted over the top. You could add rice to the pasta sauce but I prefer it without rice. Less carbs. Not frozen meals but a couple of easy, pretty healthy meals using leftovers.