Who inspired you to start cooking?

[Julio]

Who did you watch? Who told you to learn to cook?...

Who inspired you to start cooking?

For me it was over a year ago when i started watching mark bittman's minimalist on the nytimes website. I've watched cooking shows for years but watching the minimalist videos was what got me started in cooking because of the simple recipes.

Today i'm going to make roasted tomato soup.

 

[justplainbill]

My stomach, my wife, hand-me-down kitchen ware, and restaurant prices.

 

[jabbur]

My grandmother and my mom. They were both good cooks. By today's standards they stuck to pretty basic stuff but it was always good. It was fun to be in the kitchen with them as they talked and cooked together. They were the ones that taught me the basics. Then when I went to school, we still had to take home economics but I was ahead of the game there. I remember entering contests at the county fair as a young girl. My snickerdoodle cookies won a prize in the kid's category one year. Then when I was 13, I baked an apple pie for the big contest. I had to enter the adult category that year. My pie won 3rd place against all these older women. There were probably 30-40 pies. I used my grandma's recipe for the apples and my grandpa's recipe for the crust.
As you can see, for me cooking is about family and not necessarily about the food.

 

[roadfix]

My survival instinct. I got tired of eating ramen noodles everyday and couldn't really afford to eat out while in college so I forced myself to cook real food. ))
But 30+ years later I'm still a lousy cook.

 

[Julio]

I forgot to mention that i was tired of eating the samething over and over again.

 

[luvs]

the show "great Chefs", my Dad, my appetite, Julia Child (rest her soul).

 

[Katie H]

No one really inspired me to cook. I am the oldest of 5 children and, because of crappy family circumstances, I was forced to begin cooking for my siblings when I was 8-years-old and have been cooking ever since.

Fortunately cooking came naturally to me and I have become, according to Buck and others, a very very good cook.

My cooking education came from reading hundreds of cookbooks and cooking, cooking, cooking. However, I would have to say Julia Child was my favorite inspiration.

 

[fizzlebottom]

My paternal grandmother. She doesn't use recipes or measuring cups; everything is eyeballed. She made me appreciate homemade food that takes all afternoon to cook/bake.

 

[babetoo]

being newly married in 1956 , sorta had to. husband was boring eater. meat and potatoes. started really cooking after i married second time.

about five years ago , was not cooking for anyone but me, and once in a while family. that is when i got really into it. love the whole process, thinking, planning, buying and cooking food. try new things whenever i can.

 

[blissful]

Katie, similar circumstances here too. I am the oldest of 4 kids and my mom would get sick with a migraine for 3 days a month, throwing up and couldn't get out of bed. So, I started cooking when she was sick and my dad worked 2nd shift and was not around.
I started cooking around 8, I remember making brownies and having to bother my mom while she was sick, asking her if I could open some soda pop (we weren't allowed soda), for the brownies........it actually called for baking soda, but I didn't know the difference.
My two grandmothers (Molly and Molly, one american one canadian) taught me cooking when I would visit them. Pasties, pastries, soups and stews, and some ethnic specialties--Yujoslavian (sp?))
When my mom was well, she loved to make food from every different country, everyday (except when my dad was home, then it was meat and potatoes, veggies and bread/butter). This exploration caught on with me and my siblings and we all love to cook.
My sister ended up in publishing as an editor, now of cook books. For me it is my down time. My brother's love to cook too.
I have three grown boys and I've taught them all to cook (as well as sew, clean, laundry, gardening, lawn and shrub care and budgeting). And of course, fishing.
I don't want to end up in an old folks home someday with lousy food, I want to live with them (should I ever need to) with someone who CAN cook.

 

[licia]

My introduction to cooking started out much like Jabbur. My mother comes from a very good family of cooks. My grandmother could make anything taste good and taught all her kids to cook - even the guys. I started cooking about 4th grade. We moved to the country and I heard about 4H. I started practicing biscuits, sugar cookies, brownies and a few other things. I won at county with biscuits and sugar cookies, but my brownies didn't make it. I also had home ec and learned a little more including how to shop for foods, etc. All this came in handy since we got married my senior year of high school and between housework and homework I was quite busy. Also, I was the oldest of 4.

 

[blissful]

Licia, that's interesting that you are the oldest of 4 too. I wonder how many first borns we have here and how many middle children, and how many youngest. I'll start a new thread and ask.

 

[lifesaver]

When i was a young child i remember watching my grandma cook bacon and eggs and she made homemade chicken and noodles.

but otherwise i pretty much just taught myself through experimenting.

 

[kitchenelf]

I'm the baby...11 years and 6 years younger than my sisters. I cook because that's how I "love"

My mom was a simple yet good cook. I started cooking "for real" because it seemed like I would enjoy it. Once I started I didn't stop

 

[drewthechef]

Chef Joe Georges & Chef Miles Toussant

 

[Elf]

I disliked changing diapers so much that I traded dinner and dishes for diapers, temporally I thought, now after 31 years, what went wrong!

 

[radhuni]

I could only prepare dal and rice before my marriage. After marriage I started experiments with foods and my DH inspired me to do so.

Now I love cooking, it is an art, a creation of my own.

I feel more satisfied to prepare foods for others than for myself, I appreciate good foods but I can also manage with plain rice and salt.

 

[Julio]

I remembered another thing! I want to loose weight and the only way that i think i can do it is by cooking stuff that i like and that are healthy.