by Kathleen Richardson

Created on: March 15, 2009

Did I learn to cook from my mother? Yes, I did, if you look at it as her setting the example. Did she give me specific lessons and did we stand side by side, mother teaching child the creations of her kitchen. Not that I remember.

What she did was to give me a foundation on which to base my self-education in the art of cooking. Each weekday supper in my childhood home included meat and mashed potatoes or a protein-filled casserole. The one casserole I remember the best was macaroni and cheese, made with Velveeta, of course. No extras, just the basic recipe on the box, which I followed for years in my own home.

Those suppers were always rounded out with canned peas or canned carrots. Store-bought white bread was piled on a small dessert plate, and butter taken early from the refrigerator to soften. Dessert was available every night in the form of homemade cookies or cakes.

I can't imagine what happened to the leftover desserts, but maybe since there were five of us and my father took his lunch to work the next day... well, maybe there weren't leftovers. Although, I do remember there was always a cookie jar.

Most of my mother's cooking was based on recipes found in cookbooks, so maybe that's what she taught me: to pull out a cookbook, find my recipe and follow the directions. She also introduced me to the idea of eating a huge variety of foods. We occasionally ate okra and eggplant, unusual vegetables even then.

She made use of every variety of beef, which meant we tasted not only roasts or meatloaves, but also our supper tabled featured whatever happened to be on sale, such as beef tongue or heart,. And liver. Lots of liver. I grew up loving beef liver, and cooked it in my own home. Not that anyone else particularly liked it, but I did, smothered in crispy bacon and slices of onion.

On Sundays, a beef roast or a small chicken went into a slow oven just before we left for Sunday School and church. During the time elapsed, the meat of the day had cooked to perfection and rich aromas filled the house. The meat melted in our mouth. I'm not a big meat eater now, but during the years when I was, I loved to slow cook beef roasts in the oven. Each roast was surrounded by whole onions, potatoes and carrots, the meat so tender you could pull it away in strings and the vegetables tastily smothered in meat juices.

I followed my mother's lead for many years, learning to cook from cookbooks. My meals, too, included canned vegetables, white breads and butter. Until 1984 when my daughter

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