Who was your greatest influence

[Thaicooking]

I'd say my grandmom is my inspiration! She loves cooking, and si do I.

 

[bigdaddy3k]

WOW talk about a blast from the past. I forgot all about Graham Kerr

Double Wow, I just realized that I watched this show when it was originally on. I was 5 or 6 years old. I remember never missing it. Crazy the way the mind works.

 

[JJSH]

For me, it would have to be my Mum and Dad. They moved our family to a small farm in the remote countryside when I was six months old so that we would have a better quality of life ~ most UK cities in the early 1970's were uncertain places.

Both of them cooked, with my Dad loving the many curries and asian food he had experienced at University, and my Mum just being an excellent all round cook. We had our own meat from our own animals, our own vegetables, and my Mum would bake her own bread from flour that I dad would mill. We were dirt poor, but we ate like kings. I can remember I would get off the school bus early and run across the field to get home an extra ten mins early if we had eaten roast pork the day before, as I knew we would be having cold pork and chips for tea. I can also remember dinner partys being rather jolly affairs, with many compliments for my mums cooking (actually, they still are!).

Recently, at one of these dinners, some old family friends recounted a story of how the husband got into trouble with his wife the first time they came around for dinner. They had recently moved to our village to another small farm from the city and came to ask advice from my parents who had done the same a few years earlier. Naturally, my Mum immediatly invited them around for dinner. The husband enjoyed my Mums cooking so much that he had three helpings of the main course, to the horror of his wife who thought that terribly rude. 'But I couldn't help it', he said in the car on the way home, 'it was just so nice'! That just about sums up my Mums cooking.

They started making me cook my own dinner every saturday when I was about 12. Simple things at first, and this stood me well when I left home to go to university. Most of the people there were living on baked beans, while I was cooking frozen rabbits and pork that I had brought from our farm.

I don't have a wife and kids, but if / when I do, I hope that my live of cooking and good food will inspire them as much as my parents did me.

 

[Arky]

That is a nice story! Thank you.

 

[JJSH]

Thanks, Arky. I have to admit I was blessed with a very happy childhood, apart from school obviously, which only seemed to interupt the hunting, playing and general fun!

 

[Run_Out]

I started watching cook shows on PBS, still the best on TV I think. I started watching and thought I could do that so I started trying, my DW being always smarter than me, encouraged me and she hasn't had to cook in about 10 yrs.

 

[Uncle Bob]

My inspiration for "inside" cooking came mostly from Bertha "Berta" Coleman...a Creole lady from Louisiana --- My "outside" inspiration came from Virgil "Sugar Man" White, Eugene "Cap" Coleman, and John "Peter Rabbit" Bracey ....all great cooks, great Americans, and great friends!!

 

[JoMama]

Every author of every cookbook I've ever opened!

 

[MystieDawn]

My mom. I cook a lot of what she cooks. If I have any cooking questions she is the one that I call.

 

[weloveseafood]

My mother - she always cooked for us. I also learned the basics with her.