<p>Here you go HC.</p>
<p>[Butternut</a> Squash and Creamed-Spinach Gratin Recipe at Epicurious.com](<a href=“http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Butternut-Squash-and-Creamed-Spinach-Gratin-236374]Butternut”>http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Butternut-Squash-and-Creamed-Spinach-Gratin-236374)</p>
<p>cottonwood, sorry I didn’t see this sooner. I don’t think it would be easy to attach them without breaking them once their cooked and get soft. The potato has to be just the right amount of crispiness and flexibility to not break during the cutting process. I should probably practice the cutting technique with a block of cheese or bread or something like that.</p>
<p>I’ve always enjoyed cooking. I probably first got serious about thinking about food in 1979 when a friend of mine and I took off on a cross country trip in a camper van to photograph fire stations. We took a copy of Jane and Michael Stern’s *Road Food *and Calvin Trillen’s Alice Let’s Eat with us. When we weren’t sampling their recommendations we cooked some pretty amazing meals on a tiny little camper stove in our van. </p>
<p>I’ve had my share of success and failures since. I remember making a perfectly dreadful baba au rhum from Julia Child’s *The Art of French Cooking *and wanting to send her the results with a note, “This can’t be what you had in mind!” </p>
<p>A couple of summers ago my younger son decided he needed to learn to make a mousse cake. It turns out genoise is very finicky. We made one that was perfect and four that weren’t over the course of that summer. </p>
<p>We also spent a fair amount of time that summer trying to reproduce the meat pastries we’d enjoyed in Scotland. Never did find a recipe that did them justice.</p>
<p>I agree with chocchipcookie…I am a cook, not a baker. Although I can back , I am not particularly good at it. I have learned a lot in the last several years. I think I good place to start for people who want to improve is watching shows on Food Network and similar. I think that has shaped the way people eat and cook , making ingredients that you would have a hard time finding in your local grocery store before, more readily available</p>
<p>I am now able to make a few things without pulling out the recipe and reading it word for word. I think the hardest thing for me is when I branch out to cuisines I didn’t grow up with (Italian, Indian, Chinese) because I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like when it’s cooking. </p>
<p>I’m going to try and cook a whole fish baked in sea salt for Christmas. Wish me luck!</p>
<p>I am a baker, not a cook. My crowning achievement was making a croquembouche, complete with spun sugar, for a holiday dessert party. The most involved recipe I make is individual Beef Wellington for Christmas. Now that I have the technique down it is not difficult and you can make them a few days ahead and freeze them. For Christmas dinner all I have to do is pop them in the oven with some veggies to roast and I’m pretty much finished. Then I can spend the rest of the day on the couch with my new books. :)</p>
<p>Thanks, Bromfield! I happen to “like” Epicurious on Facebook, and guess which recipe just came up on my newsfeed… It looks like almost everyone loves this dish. I’ll have to try it!</p>
<p>I can make a wonderfully flakey pie crust.</p>
<p>It’s all in the technique… my special trick is too roll out the pastry on a floured towel and then tip it into the pie plate.</p>