Reasons I Love To Cook

I have loved to cook since before I was tall enough to stand at the stove and stir a pot. Now, there several types of cooking and an endless list of ways to temp the taste buds! I would have to say I specialize in comfort foods. My great-grandmother and I would spend hours in her kitchen making recipes she had been serving her family for over 60 years! She would assign me little tasks and bussle around the kitchen canning fruits and vegetables, stirring sauces and baking the best pies and cakes you've ever tasted! The very first recipe she taught me to make was the peanut butter buckeye. I remember standing in my mom's kitchen struggling to get the ingredients measured perfectly, while melting the chocolate on the stove top. I'll never forget the feeling I got when my family devoured the entire batch and complimented me on my "skill" at making this Christmas favorite. From that point on, I was hooked. I learned to can fresh fruits and jams. I perfected the art of a delicious lasagna. And I made my grandma cry when she tasted my first homemade pie crust! The day she gave me the recipe for her famous pie crust, she told me it was a family secret. I quickly committed it to memory where it still lives to this day!

Grandma Ruth has been gone for three years last Sunday. I miss everything about her. The way she always smelled of baby powder and aquanet, the way she smiled even when she was "mad as hell", or how she would never throw anything away! She kept Hershey's Kisses and water colors in a small cupboard for when her grandbabies came to visit and gave me a new baby doll she handmade every Christmas.

I keep her in my heart now and in my kitchen. Grandma was always in the kitchen. She said it was the hub of her family. No matter what was happening, her cooking always brought them together at the table. Many family members have tried to duplicate her recipes over the years and they all have tasted pretty good, but never quite as good as grandma's. Last year for the 4th of July, I made all her favorite recipes and we all gathered in her kitchen to eat. I received loads of compliments and several family members pumped me for information regarding "secret ingredients", to which they attributed the difference in grandma's recipe versus their version. To those individuals I reply, that Grandma Ruth did indeed make all of her dishes with one unlisted ingredient, but it is no secret. She always cooked with LOVE.