# How Did You Get Your Start in the Kitchen?



## Margot Howe (Aug 15, 2017)

After my trip into the baking world at age seven with a failed whoopee pie attempt, I kind of just gravitated to the baking world.  I'm sure it was mostly because of my preference for something sweet at that age.  I didn't get into cooking right away.  But as my parents both worked, we children were called upon to start a meal for supper.  There were a few fails.  I remember making a chocolate cake for my father – his favorite.  And as mother worked till 8 at the bank that night, I thought a pot of coffee would be a nice gesture.  I put the cake on the back burner to cool and started the old stove top percolator on the front burner.  Unfortunately, I turned on the back burner and burnt the heck out of the cake when I walked away from the kitchen.  I wasn't familiar at that time with a rack for cooling baked goods.  Live and learn.

By the time I was 15, I was old enough to work with 'work papers'.  The local nursing home was hiring but I was too young to work with patients.  Because I could boil water without burning it, they made me the evening cook and weekend fill in.  It was intimidating to serve 60 patients a meal that would be palatable, but I worked with a menu.  The day cook would prepare some things, or at least get them started.  I always was unhappy to see egg salad on the menu.  My day cook would boil them up but never chilled them.  She would leave them to me to peel.  I don't think that much of those eggs made it into the bowl.  Large chunks of the white were discarded – stuck on the shell.

One weekend serving as the day cook, hot rolls were on the menu.  I'd never seen them on the menu before, and having experienced bread making, I knew I was in trouble.  I don't know if I ran home for the recipe, but I found myself making my oatmeal bread into rolls for 60 patients.  I figured that if I doubled the batch I could eke out that number.  In those days, we had a big Hobart mixer.  I knew nothing about a bread hook and used the paddle that was in the machine.  Did they have dough hooks back in the '60's?  Well, it didn't work.  I ended up with a strange mixture much like cake dough. There were no forming rolls out of that.  Today, I might have been able to save it, but I slunk with that pan full of dough into the dish-washing room and forced it down the disposal.  Then I wandered into the pantry.  There was not enough bread to serve with dinner and I was in a pinch.  It was then that I spied a 5-pound bag of hot roll mix on the shelf.  oh.....

I continued to work there.  Once I reached age 16 I graduated to a nurses aide position.  I worked as an aide but sometimes as a cook, and stayed on all through high school and more as I went to nursing school.  Summers and holidays from training, I was called upon to work in the kitchen.  It was a nice change.  I was able to provide aides and cooks with their summer vacations.

I learned the value of the clean-up. Called on the carpet only once was more than I wanted to take.  It turned out to be from someone's midnight snack not from our evening meal.  But I never received an apology from the boss for that calling down.  It was another lesson learned.  It was about how to treat those that work for you.  Yes, live and learn.


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## msmofet (Aug 15, 2017)

Single working mom. Been cooking complete meals since I was about 7 years old. Before that watching and helping with prep work, setting table and washing dishes.


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## CakePoet (Aug 15, 2017)

My mum is a horrible cook, not even goats will eat her bread.  So it was either eat  inedible food while dad worked away from the home or start cooking.  My grandfather and my father  are the two cooks that inspired me.

So I been cooking since I was 7 and always loved this.


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## CharlieD (Aug 15, 2017)

I was hungry once, there was kitchen and uncooked ingredients. To survive I had to cook.


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## CraigC (Aug 15, 2017)

Necessity. I ate everything I made no matter how bad, which was the inspiration to improve really fast.


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## GotGarlic (Aug 15, 2017)

My mom is an okay cook and she doesn't really enjoy it. And she doesn't have a lot of patience for teaching, so I didn't learn a whole lot from her. My dad cooked some, primarily grilling steak and making his mother's kielbasa and sauerkraut with beer. 

After I married, I went to a class on cooking with herbs at a local horticultural center. It was a revelation. I had received a (typical for the time) pre-filled herb and spice rack as a wedding gift and had never really eaten fresh herbs before. That really changed my cooking. I came home with a bunch of recipes. DH attached some window boxes to the outside of our fire escape balcony and that was my first herb garden. 

Then I acquired some good cookware and knives, took more classes, subscribed to Cooks Illustrated and learned a lot on my own. Also, I had my first major surgery in 2002 and recovered for six weeks at home, so I discovered the Food Network. It was much more about cooking then, so I learned a lot from the that, too. I'm fascinated by the chemistry of cooking and recently have started baking more. 

Luckily, my DH not a very picky eater, so I make all kinds of things. It's so much fun [emoji813]


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## buckytom (Aug 15, 2017)

My mom was an awesome cook, and my friends' mothers were as well. When I got my first apartment after graduating Princeton,  I quickly realized that I needed to learn how to cook in the manner of which I was raised. The rest has been 30+ years of trying to replicate my the food of my youth, as well as the dishes I've eaten in restaurants that have piqued my interest.

Actually, this reminded me of a the very first thread that I ever started here: 
http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f104/when-did-you-realize-you-were-a-foodie-2641.html

Oh, yeah, that was Princeton Driving School, btw... I couldn't hack college. Failed out in less than 2 years.


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## Andy M. (Aug 15, 2017)

My mom was a great cook and my dad was a chef.  He often put me to work in the evenings after dinner typing up recipes he dictated to me off the top of his head.

After marriage and a couple of kids, I got the bug to cook, remembering my dad's efforts from a couple of decades before.  I never got much chance to cook at home as my DW was possesive of the kitchen and I wasn't allowed (cooking was her "job").  I was limited to weekend pancakes for the kids. 

Fast forward to divorce and living on my own again.  I had to cook so I did.  Watched a lot of TV cooking shows.  Many thanks to Julia, Martin Yan, Justin Wilson, Jacques Pepin, Alton Brown, Emeril, et al. I have been refining my skills since then.

Now I cook all the meals for SO, GD and myself as well as for gatherings of friends and family.


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## caseydog (Aug 15, 2017)

My mom was also a bad cook. Bland, and overcooked was her specialty. 

I started cooking in college, because eating out wasn't in my budget working in a camera store after classes. 

Later in life, I started to enjoy cooking as a creative endeavor. And, as I have said before, the day I learned mise en place was a cooking epiphany. I really started to try some pretty fancy dishes, and my success rate went way up. More success made it more fun, which led to more cooking. 

CD


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## Addie (Aug 15, 2017)

My mother contracted polio as a child. She wore a brace on her leg. A lot of days it was difficult for her to get up, walk, sit down over and over. So she would sit at the table prepping the food and tell me to add this, stir the pot, put a cover on it, etc. And it was all on a wood burning stove to start. When we had the farm, I learned all about canning at her side in the summer kitchen. I did all the 'cooking' under her direction, and she did all the prepping. 

But she wasn't into baking that much. I used to ask her how to bake a cake, and other goodies. I would gather all the ingredients and follow her directions at her side while she watched what I was doing. Then the goodies went into that oven at just the right temperature. She taught me how to tell the temp just by putting my hand in the oven. 

Then I got married to an Englishman who had trained at some of the most prestigious cooking academies in Europe. The only problem was he was used to cooking for a large amount of people at one time. So one day I asked him for directions on how to make an apple pie. Seasoning mostly. "Look in my little black book. There is a perfect recipe for apple pie in it." 

2 bushels of apples, one cup of cinnamon, etc. You get the idea. He was of no help. But on the rare occasions he decided to cook for the family, I would stand at his side and watch. Even took some notes. But he worked so fast like you would when you are in a commercial kitchen, it was difficult to keep up with him. 

Along came the kids and the family grew. I cooked the foods I had learned at my mothers side. For baking, my husband had the first edition of _the Joy Of Cooking_ by Irma Rombauer. My son Spike now has it. I learned most of my baking skills from that book. I read it from cover to cover more than once. I am sure that book is worth some pretty pennies by now. But Spike will never part with it.

My mother taught me dishes she grew up with. Good hearty, rib sticking, New England foods. But after the farm was sold and we moved to the city, it was a community of Italian immigrants. All my girlfriends were Italian and whenever I would go to their homes, the grandmother (Nonni) would be cooking and would tell me all about what they were making and how. So I learned to add Italian cooking to my skills. Including desserts. Although I don't care for many of their desserts, my kids loved them. So I would rarely make them for special occasions.


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## cjmmytunes (Aug 16, 2017)

I always helped out in the kitchen from as long as I can remember.  When I was 7, my father passed away and my mom went to work.  She would leave a main meal in the fridge to heat up, but my sister and I would fix a side to go with it.  During the summers, my grandmother would come and stay with us until the year I turned 13 and I could stay by myself.  My sister was 5 years older than me, and she worked during the summers and had band activities also.  After age 13, my sister was living at the beach and I was by myself after school and summer for that year and the next year, so I cooked all sorts of stuff for me and my Mom because she was working nights.  Of course, I cooked after I got my own place and had a family of my own, and now I take care of my Mom and do all the stuff around the house too.


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## RPCookin (Aug 16, 2017)

I just grew up like any boy in the 50's, playing ball and riding bikes and such, except that my father left us when I was 10.  During the 4 years before Mom remarried, I occasionally helped with simple things to get dinner started before she got home from work - stuff like putting on potatoes to bake or boil, setting the table, etc.  

Since I always liked to eat, it seemed natural to first learn how to prepare some of my favorite meals, and she liked the company in the kitchen.  In order to get to lick out the beaters and the bowl when she baked, it was expected that I would help in some way, so I learned early how to make a cake from a mix.  I think that I was the only boy I knew right through high school who could bake a cake, and make frosting from scratch.  Pre 1964 it just wasn't considered a normal pursuit for a boy.  

Between high school graduation and getting married at age 46, I had 28 years to mostly cook for myself.  Learning to do it acceptably was simple self defense.  I'm not a great cook.  I rarely make fancy dishes, simply because I'm inherently lazy.  But I do know the basics.  

20 years ago I took a 4 week evening course in the essentials of classic French cooking, and I even retained some of it.  I can put things together, season them fairly well, and cook them properly.  For me, that's the essence of cooking.  Following a recipe is fine, but it's a rare dish I have't done something to modify the plan, even if that is just increasing the seasoning for bolder flavors.


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## Rocklobster (Aug 16, 2017)

I was a licensed funeral director in Toronto, Ontario when I met my first wife. She is Italian. We eventually got married and decided to accept an offer from her parents to move to Italy and help them run their hotel. When I got there, I couldn't speak Italian so they threw me in the kitchen to work with the crew. I spent a couple of years there until I moved out into the bar and became a barrista for another year before we made the move back to Canada..I came back and immediately got a job in a kitchen. Been in and out of the business for over 30 years... owned two places for a total of around 17 of those years. Looks like I'll be doing it until I can't.

I also cooked KFC for a couple of years in high school...


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## Themommychef (Aug 16, 2017)

CraigC said:


> Necessity. I ate everything I made no matter how bad, which was the inspiration to improve really fast.



Same


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## Souschef (Aug 16, 2017)

I really did not do anything in the kitchen until I married my late wife 40 years ago. We both worked for the same company and rode to and from together. It became painfully obvious if I just sat on my butt, we would not eat until 9 PM!
So I became the souschef (hence my screen name), to help with preparation with dinner.
After my wife was brain injured, she could not handle the cooking. She had been organized and had menus worked out for a week at a time. I just worked from a stack of those menus and her cookbooks and recipe file until she passed away 12 years later.
I am now blessed with a wife who is a fantastic cook, and I still help with the preparation, and occasionally do the cooking.
But she is the BBQ queen (with apologies to ABBA)
You can dance
You can jive
Having the time of your life
See that girl
Watch that scene
She is the BBQ Queen


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## PrincessFiona60 (Aug 16, 2017)

Like others I learned to really cook as a matter of self preservation.  Mom was a basic cook and the menus never varied.    I started reading cookbooks (Thanks Better Homes and Gardens) to pick up on variations of our standard menus.  The TLC Channel had Justin Wilson and Martin Yan...they inspired me to try more exciting food.  For many years Shrek and I had Thanksgiving and Christmas meals as my playground to try other cuisines, I would create a whole menu for the meal from a cookbook from the library.

I soon started working in restaurant kitchens (definitely NOT waitress material), starting out prepping and creating Salad Bars.  Then went to Soups.  Briefly worked the grill, too high pressure for me.  Began working in a grocery scratch bakery, finished off in a Mom and Pop Bakery as the Soup and Salad Queen as well as accomplished donut dipper.  I still love to experiment, my time in the restaurants and bakeries gave me the confidence and desire to use professional equipment.  At one point, Shrek and I were considering opening our own bakery, but I got lead down the Nursing path.

I miss working in the kitchens, not enough to go back to it though.


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## rodentraiser (Aug 16, 2017)

I learned to cook when I went on food stamps. I kept running out of food every month buying frozen food, so I bit the bullet and decided to learn to cook.

The first month, half my food stamp money went to buying spices, since all I had in the house was salt. That was a rough month. But next month, with a couple of recipes I thought I might like, I was actually making some food I could eat. 

Since then I've stumbled on Chef John's videos which were a God-send for me. I need to see cooking done before I understand it. Please don't laugh - cooking isn't as simple for some people as for others. 

Anyway, now I have about 38 spices on my shelves and a ton of recipes I'd like to make. I experiment with new recipes at least a couple of times a month in summer, much more in winter.


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## GotGarlic (Aug 16, 2017)

rodentraiser said:


> Since then I've stumbled on Chef John's videos which were a God-send for me. I need to see cooking done before I understand it. Please don't laugh - cooking isn't as simple for some people as for others.



I think most of us understand that people learn in different ways. Some learn visually and some verbally. It's all good [emoji2]


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## rodentraiser (Aug 16, 2017)

GotGarlic said:


> I think most of us understand that people learn in different ways. Some learn visually and some verbally. It's all good [emoji2]



Thanks! I think my problem is that I have a hard time learning no matter what method I use.


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## Souschef (Aug 17, 2017)

Souschef said:


> I really did not do anything in the kitchen until I married my late wife 40 years ago. We both worked for the same company and rode to and from together. It became painfully obvious if I just sat on my butt, we would not eat until 9 PM!
> So I became the souschef (hence my screen name), to help with preparation with dinner.
> After my wife was brain injured, she could not handle the cooking. She had been organized and had menus worked out for a week at a time. I just worked from a stack of those menus and her cookbooks and recipe file until she passed away 12 years later.
> I am now blessed with a wife who is a fantastic cook, and I still help with the preparation, and occasionally do the cooking.
> ...


And there she is!


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## Sagittarius (Aug 17, 2017)

Both my parents are in a very related business, and deal with Restaurateurs, Hotel General Managers and Executive Chefs. 

Always, felt  a need to go beyond the basics while I studied for my Travel Tourism Masters Degree  in France, I had also attended culinary arts school to learn the basic techniques.  

My mom is an exemplary cook and so were are 2 grandmothers and grand fathers.

So, being Mediterranean, it is not difficult to become involved in the food / travel industries ..  

However, I prefer to travel as a Tour Operator than to be in a kitchen or any office. 

Interesting post !
Have a lovely summer ..


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## CubsGal (Aug 17, 2017)

My mother doesn't like to cook or clean, so as soon as we were old enough to do either, she handed off the work to us. When we'd complain about our chores, she'd say "why do you think I had kids?" Also, she was not a morning person and was usually still in bed when we left for school, so if we wanted breakfast before school or something in our lunch bag (our school didn't have a cafeteria, you either brought your own food or went hungry), we had to make it. And as I've mentioned before, she isn't a great cook, so we were happy to take over and figure out how to make things better.


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## Katie H (Aug 17, 2017)

I'm the oldest of 5 children and as soon as my mother realized I could stand on a stool and do anything, much of the care of my siblings and the cooking was tasked to me.  When she wanted to, which was rare, my mother could cook...most things.  However, her mushy grey brussels sprouts were almost inedible and she cooked a good steak so well-done it could've been used to shingle a roof.

At any rate, I began cooking for the whole family when I was about 7 or 8.  At least I could read and didn't feel intimidated by the kitchen in any way.  I think I looked it as a bit of an adventure.

Because, all told, there were 7 of us in the family, I learned early on to cook in quantity.  I remember something George Carlin said in one of his monologues, "I don't know what it it, but make a lot of it."  That was my mantra for most of my cooking life because I always seemed to be in a situation that involved lots of plates at the table.

When I was 13, I discovered a cookbook-of-the-month club and was firmly bitten by the culinary bug.  My initial choice of 4 books still holds a place of honor in my cookbook library, which has now grown to nearly 3,000 volumes.

I love to cook and to bake and have never had any interest in packaged or processed foods.  Nearly everything I make, or have made, was made from scratch.  For me it doesn't seem to take any longer to do it that way than to add water or such to box of "something."  I have a hard time eating something with syllables I can't pronounce.

It took me _forever_ to learn how to cook for two and I still have my quantity moments.  I've cooked for so many for so long, that preparing foods for only two is like making a sample.  That's why freezers were invented I guess.

At any rate, I've always loved to cook and don't do as fancy/complex recipes as I used to but, on occasion, I'll go goofy and let 'er rip for a full-blown gourmet extravaganza.

This close to 70 and it being only the two of us, good old-fashioned food is just the ticket.

I simply can't imagine _not_ cooking.  Some days it's quite therapeutic.


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## Rocklobster (Aug 17, 2017)

Katie H said:


> I simply can't imagine _not_ cooking.  Some days it's quite therapeutic.


 I agree. I'll cook at the deli for 8-10 hours a day, get home by 6:30 and start to cook dinner. Mind you, it is better with a cold beverage and your favorite music...just like most things...lol


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## Katie H (Aug 17, 2017)

Rocklobster said:


> I agree. I'll cook at the deli for 8-10 hours a day, get home by 6:30 and start to cook dinner. Mind you, it is better with a cold beverage and your favorite music...just like most things...lol




I second that.  Only yesterday I was simmerin' and stirrin' to Basia, along with something vodka.


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## medtran49 (Aug 17, 2017)

I don't remember ever not cooking or at least helping in the kitchen.  It wasn't something I  had to do or was made to do, just liked helping.


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## skilletlicker (Aug 17, 2017)

Got hungry. Stumbled into the kitchen 'cause that's where the food was.

My parents got married at the beginning of the depression. Mom worked full time and was active in politics, social, and civic organizations her whole life. She put food on the table when she had time but there were lots times when I was expected to fend for myself, so long as I cleaned up afterward.

Also, when she did cook, you darn well better eat what was put in front of you because after the dishes were done the kitchen was closed.

I guess that's why I just don't understand posts that begin, "My [acronym I never understand] is a picky eater, ...?"


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## Addie (Aug 17, 2017)

I had a neighbor that cooked individual meals for each of her six kids every night. I always gave my kids two choices. Eat or go hungry. Funny, I always had a lot of empty plates to wash up at the end of the meal. 

One Christmas a few years back, my daughter gave me a framed picture with that written on it. It hangs proudly in my kitchen. She told me she could not pass it by.


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## RPCookin (Aug 18, 2017)

I was raised to the same tune - "You can eat it or not, but that's what there is, and that's all there is." I learned to like most (no, still not all  ) of what was put on the table.


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## Just Cooking (Aug 18, 2017)

Being lazy, I copied my response from the "Why do you cook" thread and poll...     

When I was a lad of 19, I married a sweet girl who was raised on down   home country cooking.. For the first 20 years of our marriage she did   all the cooking while I jumped in here and there.. When I was 40 years   old, she gifted me with a wok, basic tools and a Chinese cookbook.. I   became hooked and branched off into various ethnic cooking endeavors   while learning some of her favorite dishes.. A fun thing was having our,  by then, grown children and their friends over for a 'new dinner' I  came up with.. We would sit and eat and then it was thumbs up or thumbs  down time.. We enjoyed that and still laugh about those days..

After 33 years of  marriage, she passed away.. Our kids were grown and  scattered so I sold  our home and moved back to my home town.. 

I eventually became  reacquainted with a girl I'd dated in high school  (in the 50's) and we  became a couple.. She preferred that I cook and she clean up... Worked  for me..

I took a serious interest in cooking for us, family and  friends.. When I  discovered computers, my interest expanded to searching  for new,  interesting dishes to prepare.. I spent a lot of time  gathering  recipes, adapting them to our tastes and just having fun with  all  things cooking..

Now at 77 years old, I have pared back on  preparing big meals and we  have simplified our daily intake of food  along with most everything  else in our lives.. 

While I don't get  fancy anymore, I still have a passion for everything  kitchen and live  out my passion through following food blogs, etc..

Ross


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## rodentraiser (Aug 18, 2017)

I was the pickiest eater ever and my mom didn't use the line "Eat or go hungry" on me (I would have gone hungry). Instead, I had to sit at the table until I ate my food and when my mom finally got tired of throwing out food every night at 10pm, she gave up.

I'm a lot less of a picky eater now and I like even more foods than my mom does. I always wish she had just left me alone to develop my own tastes instead of trying to force me to eat food I didn't like.


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## Farmer Jon (Aug 18, 2017)

I started cooking in 3rd or 4th grade. My dad was a trucker. Never home. My mom was always at work. She would leave a casserole or a put together a roast. She would leave a note what time to put it in the oven at what temp and time. 
One time she left something we didn't like so I made something else. Just learned from there.


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## Addie (Aug 18, 2017)

Farmer Jon said:


> I started cooking in 3rd or 4th grade. My dad was a trucker. Never home. My mom was always at work. She would leave a casserole or a put together a roast. She would leave a note what time to put it in the oven at what temp and time.
> One time she left something we didn't like so I made something else. Just learned from there.



So how much of the cooking for the family do you do now? There has to be days when you are sitting in the combine all day that you don't get a chance to get in the kitchen.


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