by Roxann Valeriano

Created on: October 21, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

Picture this. A budding chef, determined to make a nice desert for Sunday supper. At the ripe old age of eleven she had already mastered the fine art of making a Betty Crocker cake and had even ventured as far as making cream puffs, but this desert had to be special. So while her parents were off visiting with friends, she ventured into the kitchen armed with a recipe for orange meringue pie. With fierce determination she followed the receipt, step by step.

First, the crust. Done. Check.

Next, the orange filling. Mix. Taste. Perfect.

Finally, the meringue. As she began to mix up the ingredients her know-it-all older brother sauntered in and leaned against the counter.

What are you going to do with that electric beater? he asked.

Now our chef at this point in life, figured big brother may actually know more than she, so she explained how she was going to whip the meringue.

Oh no! he exclaimed. He told her that using the electric mixer would ruin it. He even pointed out in the recipe where it said mix, but nowhere did it say with an eclectic mixer. After much debate she relented, after all he was three years older and therefore had to be smarter right?

So using a wooden spoon she mixed and mixed and mixed. There were no stiff pikes in the bowl, but perhaps those came when she cooked it. Having convinced herself that all would be fine she poured the eggy substance over the orange filling and popped into the oven and watched anxiously to see if the top would puff.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you the outcome of this story. The meringue topping never emerged and what did come out of the oven tasted a bit like orange flavored fried eggs that sadly only the family dog and the chef's four-year old brother would eat. Disheartened, the young chef did not pick up a wooden spoon again for many, many years.

I share this story of one of my biggest culinary failures with you to make you understand that not everyone is born as natural chef. Even Julia Childs had to go to school to learn, but you do not need a formal education to learn to cook. You don't even need a fancy kitchen filled with tons of kitchen gizmos. What you need, is for something to spark your inner culinary genius.

Once you have made the decision to learn to cook, your next step is to figure what kind of cooking you'd like to do. Do you want to make gourmet meals that will dazzle your dinner guests, bake a cake for a special event or just be able to put a home-cooked meal for your family on the table?

Once

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