Cooking....I come by it naturally

 I come from a long line of wonderful cooks.  Most directly, my mom was a great cook.  She was a self taught cook.  She told me that Grandmother wouldn't really let her in the kitchen, so once she was out of school and on her own she had to teach herself how to cook.  It paid off and I cherish those times when she taught me what she knew.  She made great chili and lasagna, two things I've tried to copy with moderate success.  And her pound cakes were amazing.  All of her friends got a pound cake for their birthdays.  I did find a recipe that comes close to hers but it's not exactly hers.  I'm not sure if she ever wrote that recipe down.  She made it so much that she didn't need a recipe.  I do know, though, that the original recipe was for chocolate pound cake....she just left out the chocolate.  

But, I digress.  Both of my grandmothers were good cooks.  Grandmother baked the best cookies and cheese straws, which she did teach me how to do.  Her dressing, which she only made at Thanksgiving, was another one of those "nothing's written down" dishes that was amazing.  It was Mom's favorite.  Grandma Fornes was an outstanding country cook.  Everything she made was good comfort food. Her cornbread was legendary and I've never been able to come close to that.  My Aunt Sara was a good cook, too, and I have a lot of her recipe cards.  She was famous for her congealed salads.  Every meal had a congealed salad with it.  They're not to everyone's taste, but I sure do enjoy them.  The traditional ones, though, not those strange ones from the 60's and 70's that had meats and all kinds of things in them.  No thank you!

When I'm in the kitchen, I feel close to these women.  I feel like I am carrying on the traditions of the kitchen in our family.  There's a wonderful sense of comfort in that.  And after all of these years, my cooking has continued to improve, not that I was ever bad at it, but I've definitely gotten better and have tried to expand my cooking horizons.  The kitchen is the heart of the home and I love being in there creating something. When I think of the women in my family, I usually picture them in the kitchen.  That's where we would bond.  That's where we would work together.  I love cooking.  And I come by it naturally.

That is all