<p>Yeah, me too. I’m my own sous chef. I prep everything before I start. As I was learning to cook after I got married I’d read the recipe, and do the next thing as it came up…oh crap, I need to chop an onion before the olive oil burns…now where’s the garlic? lol</p>
<p>I’m a good cook, and a great baker, but I can’t just throw something together out of ingredients I have on hand (though I’m better at it than I used to be.) My best friend is great at that, so maybe she’s starting to rub off on me. I actually enjoy the precise nature of baking; maybe that’s why I’m a better baker than cook.</p>
<p>I’m excellent at improvising and figuring out what to prepare based on what we have in the fridge, freezer or store. Baking–only do a few times/ year or less. It’s just not something I or we favor. </p>
<p>I am an excellent cook and baker, but W if better and does most of the cooking. She used to help out with some of the area’s famous chef’s cooking classes. It’s a major hobby of hers and our food bills are astronomical. </p>
<p>My mother was raised in an Italian household where both parents worked, so started cooking for the family when she was 11, no recipes at all. We all took turns cooking and helping as kids. My sister worked for a short time as a pastry chef, still does it once in a while. I like to cook. My brother, however, is close to worthless in a kitchen - funny how the whole thing missed him.</p>
<p>Much to my wife’s surprise, D asked for my my homemade gnocchi and sauce when she came home for Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>I cannot follow a recipe. I look at what I have and improvise. Often it is very good, but it is never the same twice. </p>
<p>I stink at baking. See above. </p>
<p>If I were single, I’d live above a Whole Foods and buy pre-prepared foods from there every day and live on that. I could do so quite healthfully, too. </p>
<p>My parents were restaurant owners, chefs and caterers. Do you think it rubbed off on me? Well, maybe a little, but not much! I think I was the only kid I knew that grew up with Paella and Chicken Marbella for dinners and homemade rice pudding for desserts. Today I’m an average cook but DO love to improvise. I get very impatient following recipes for baking. My dad used to make the most awesome homemade Boston baked beans. They had very fancy parties at home where my sisters & I were ‘helpers’ and ‘servers’. My older sister is much more creative of a cook…I do enjoy making things from scratch, though, and every meal most nights is healthy real foods (not processed or frozen tv dinners)…although I’m following abasket’s grilled cheese sandwich tonight since it’s just me. I make it extra fancy though, I add bacon and tomato! ;)</p>
<p>I am a very good cook. I don’t used recipes anymore. Every time we travel I look for several recipes that I will try at home. I don’t measure or follow recipes anymore. BUT, I cannot bake. I can’t follow recipes. I find it tedious and wait! we have excellent bakeries here. I support them…always</p>
<p>I’m a very good cook and enjoy cooking. H is a better cook than I am. He loves checking out sources for food and cookware. He makes almost everything from scratch. He thinks nothing of driving 50 miles to buy a special ingredient. He follows recipes to the letter. I’m more likely to add my own touch. Neither of us bakes, except at Christmas when we make a few treats that our families always had on holidays.</p>
<p>Indian cooks traditionally passed along their skills to daughters. There are now some Indian cookbooks but very few. I made my mother-in-law measure things for a favorite dish once so I could replicate it. Her hands are so tiny compared to mine we would have vastly different results without using the standardized measuring devices! Decades ago I asked how to make some dishes and was told by women in H’s family the names of some spices, but not amounts. I found a cookbook to learn when to use 1/4 or 1 teaspoon- it matters, especially with the red pepper! Now I use measuring spoons and cups but use more/less depending…</p>
<p>My mother was a terrible cook. I grew up with salt, pepper, margarine and perhaps some garlic for spices in general. She used Campbells tomato soup as a base for spaghetti sauce. The 1950’s and 60’s were not know for ethnic cooking, unless it was your own family’s. My north European roots were not spicy. Such a contrast to H’s. I also have learned about the various regional difference in Indian cooking- just like the regional variations in European cooking.</p>
<p>Some Indian relatives consider potatoes to be a vegetable (as opposed to a starch) so they don’t always include needed foods in a meal. We try to convince them they need more than lentils, rice, wheat and potatoes in a meal sometimes. Some people we know are “meat and potatoes” people. Some always seem to have pasta, even in its many variations it is just wheat. </p>
<p>We are lucky that American foods have evolved to include so many different ethnic variations regardless of one’s own background.</p>
<p>It appears that folks on College Confidential are generally better-than-average cooks, if we are to be believed. </p>
<p>VeryHappy: I think that I have a “reason” why we may be good cooks and/or reservation makers. Remember that piece of advice about how important family dinners are? I suspect most of us tried to make it happen. If we can’t cook we order or reserve dinner. My kids really didn’t understand NOT having food in the house. Dinner out? Two or three times a week…but we were together</p>
<p>deleted</p>
<p>Oh yes, I suppose I am gifted in that category.</p>
<p>However, my version of cooking consists of picking out delicious pre made food from Whole Foods, and reheating it. I am very good at picking out and reheating.</p>
<p>I really hate cooking, but I like eating well. It’s a dilemma. We go out a lot. In fact, just because of this thread, I’m going to forego cooking the eggs and go out to breakfast right now. 
</p>
<p>I like to eat and as such have developed passable cooking skills. Very little baking, just not my thing. My H was raised on hot dogs, fish sticks, and hamburger helper. My mom cooked from the Moosewood cookbook. Very different food cultures lol. I’m the cook, because I like to cook and eat real food.</p>
<p>Selection bias. Those who are good cooks are more willing to post about it. </p>
<p>^^^^True.</p>
<p>No, I am not but can follow recipes and ad lib if I have to. I really don’t like to cook anymore. It seems like a lot of work for a very little amount of pay-off. I just watched the Master Chef Junior series and was amazed at what the 2 finalists came up with at ages 11 and 12. I think I would have cut off my fingers if I had tried cooking anything very complicated at that age. They were using terms that I will have to take the time to look up some day. Oh well… Maybe we will go out for dinner tonight. </p>
<p>I mostly ad lib. I just served a curried squash-and-apple soup that I made without a recipe, based on a homemade stock left over from cooking a tongue last week. My dining partner wouldn’t eat the tongue, but he loved the soup!</p>
<p>I am the house chef. I am not an excellent cook, but I am a good cook. I rarely look at a recipe. I grew up watching my mom, asking questions. By the time I was 20, I had most of it down.</p>
<p>My wife cannot do that. She HAS TO grate the exact amount of cheese that a recipe calls for. She HAS TO chop the exact amount of scallions.</p>