by Lynda Chitwood

Created on: March 10, 2009

I am the family cook.
There are no two ways about it, no one in my family disputes it and I like it that way. We once joked that each generation of family only gets one cook, and I AM IT!

I honestly can't say how and when I learned to cook; only that I have always cooked and I consider the learning part to be an ongoing process. I believe that one can learn preparation methods and procedures, but if you don't love preparing food and feeding people, you will never be a good cook.

My three sisters are proof positive of that.

My oldest sister doesn't cook. She can if she wants to, she just doesn't want to and she is self-aware enough to be satisfied with that decision. The only thing I remember her making when we were kids was Jello and it was lumpy. (Lumpy Jello is no small feat, either!)

By the time I was a teenager, I was doing most of the cooking in the house. Simple stuff, mostly hamburger recipes and spaghetti, but at 15 years of age, my culinary skills were already outshining my mother's.
I looked after my two younger sisters and fed them. When I moved out, they hung around my apartment, preferring my cooking over our mother's. By that time, I was eschewing my mother's Southern Fried recipes for lighter and fresher fare of my own creation. My meatballs began like her meatloaf, but with fresh onions, garlic and sausage, they were deliciously different and remain a favorite with my kids and grandkids.

When my sisters became girlfriends and then wives, they began to call me for cooking tips. I used to say I should have a 900-line installed and charge them for cooking lessons over the phone. The younger of the two wasn't too bad about it, but older one not only called more often, she would ask advice and then not follow it.

This is basically how one incident went:

Sis: I am making chocolate chip cookies and I don't have any baking soda, is it important?

Me: I am not a food chemist, but I am certain you can't make cookies without either baking soda or baking powder.

Sis: So I really need to have one of those, huh? I don't want to go to the store, what will happen if I don't use it?

Me: I am pretty sure your cookies will run all over the cookie sheet.

I knew my sister well enough to know she'd try anyway, so it was no surprise when the phone rang an hour later and my sister proclaimed that the cookies ran all over the cookie sheet!

Me: I hate to say I told you so!

Sis: What do I do now?

Me: Throw them in the trash.

Sis: What if I go to the store and get baking soda?

Me: It won't

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