do you love cooking?

[Heidi3]

I am curious...and thought I would ask...do you guys find cooking a labor of love ...do you find it relaxing? At work most of my friends are not "into" cooking..they do what they have to do to get food into their families but do not really get a thrill out of it or find it in any way shape or form relaxing. I do! :wave I have a tremendous passion for cooking.. it is a wonderful relaxing thing for to me to visualize a menu, imagine who I am making this food for what they like and how pleased they will be when they eat something prepared just for them, friends, families, even pot lucks...I get pumped at the idea of cooking!....I am always looking ahead to how the food will look on the plates, how the plates will look on the table, the taste, the smell...I love shopping in different stores for varied ingredients.... cleaning, chopping, slicing, dicing, pounding, kneading...gives me endorphins!...I always have "mood" music on ..Soca or reggae for curries and Island food, Smooth Jazz for Italian, rock for BBQ, Mowtown for anything that requires intensity..Hawaiian Steel guitar for anything from the Pacific Islands.....am I alone in my obsession? Is it just me that takes great pride in my ability to break a budget and trash a kitchen over one meal???
Tell your story....

[brats4]

I love to cook. Especially on holidays, the bigger the meal the better. Nothing is more satisfying then seeing someone really enjoy something you created. I am also a gadget nut. I dream of someday having a kitchen large enough to use all the crazy appliances I've picked up.

[NulloModo]

I definately enjoy cooking. I love reading recipes, discussing methods/ingredients/history/etc. I love watching cooking shows. I love trying new dishes, seeing the reactions of friends as they try them out, and fine-tuning them to get the best possible flavor combinations, textures, and aromas.

I do find it relaxing, as well as just plain fun. Cooking can be an art, a craft, a hobby, an obsession, lots of things. My biggest problem is that since I live on my own I tend to cook up a lot more than I can eat, so I get leftover buildup. I would probably cook even more if I had people around to help gobble it up.

[bgood2me]

Yep! Cooking is 'therapy' for me...... simmer, simmer, stir, stir.
:icondance

[theredhead]

I don't enjoy cooking very much. I think there's a definite cooking "intuition" that some people have and others don't. I don't have it and no matter how hard I try, most of the new things I try come out awful. My poor family agrees. :sadblinky

Thankfully, my children are old enough to fend for themselves when they don't like what I fix and my DH couldn't care less what I feed him. He's on Atkins too and could eat the same things over and over and never complain. :love

[NulloModo]

I don't enjoy cooking very much. I think there's a definite cooking "intuition" that some people have and others don't. I don't have it and no matter how hard I try, most of the new things I try come out awful. My poor family agrees. :sadblinky

Thankfully, my children are old enough to fend for themselves when they don't like what I fix and my DH couldn't care less what I feed him. He's on Atkins too and could eat the same things over and over and never complain. :love

In my experience, the key is to follow recipes to the letter while you are starting out, watch as many cooking shows as you can, watch for technique, flavor combinations, etc. Don't make substitutions until you actually understand what you are subbing inside and out. Once you have a handle on the basics, start to play around.

[not2late]

I actually love learning about cooking theory, technique and principles---which explains my, er...ummm..."problem" with cook books.

[sharbur2002]

I love cooking too!

I learned from my Grandmother and my Mother. Also, picked up quite a few cookbooks through the years, but only use them for "special dishes", ya know, the dishes I only cook once or twice a year.

Anyone here have Master Cook?

Lately I have been playing around with the newest Master Cook program

http://www.valu-soft.com/products/mastercook.html

I have found so many recipes to download into Master Cook on the internet including all the cooking shows on TFN.

Sharon

[wil_d_thril]

When I started this way of eating, my attitude about cooking changed quite a bit. I never hated it, but I didn't do a whole lot either. And my wife, while she is a great mother and has other great qualities about her, is not a very good cook. Basically if it didn't involve a microwave, we were out of luck. So, I had to learn to cook the meals if I wanted to change my lifestyle.

I'm not much on creating my own recipes, but I enjoy getting in the kitchen and trying new ones that I come across and I really enjoy firing up the grill to throw a nice hunk of meat and some veggies on. Plus it gives me an excuse to light up a stogie! Nothing better than being outside, cooking over a fire, enjoying the occasional cigar, and a glass of wine or other low carb alcoholic beverage (assuming you have reached the alcohol rung).

I agree with Nullo, watch as many cooking shows as you can and stick with following the recipes. When the experienced is gained, then you can experiment.

[IrishIrish]

Megs ... I, too, suffer from the same malady ... I collect lots of cookbooks. Recently I sold off and donated about half of my collection. I couldn't have been more sad if I had been packing my DH's bags and sending him packing! But, here is the sick part. Even after getting rid of half of them, I still have about 350 cookbooks. Let's just say, while others curl up with a good romance novel or biography, I enjoy a cookbook.

I also love cooking. My undergraduate degree is in Chemistry. That might explain it.

[not2late]

Megs ... I, too, suffer from the same malady ... I collect lots of cookbooks. Recently I sold off and donated about half of my collection. I couldn't have been more sad if I had been packing my DH's bags and sending him packing! But, here is the sick part. Even after getting rid of half of them, I still have about 350 cookbooks. Let's just say, while others curl up with a good romance novel or biography, I enjoy a cookbook.

I also love cooking. My undergraduate degree is in Chemistry. That might explain it.

Jo, the rumor mill says nurselady has a small room filled with cookbooks. :yikes

So we aren't alone!

The whole cooking technique, theory and principles interests me along with flavor combinations. That's why my cookbook collection is large. I'm also fascinated by "old" cooking techniques and flavor combinations, which is why I have some reprints of 19th century cookbooks, and ethnic cooking techniques and flavor combinations.

I learned, when I went vegetarian ,that the best ways to survive a diet is to know several cooking techniques, get to know herbs and spices and read cookbooks/watch cooking shows.

I found that general cookbooks contain wonderful ideas/recipes that the specialized cookbooks don't have. So I adapt and improve (or at least try to) alot of recipes. The microwave flaxmeal wafer recipe I posted on this board over a year ago is a recipe I adapted from the Raw Foods movement. Their recipe used whole flax seeds that were soaked, formed into cracker sizes and dehydrated in a food dehydrator until crisp---I used flaxmeal and a microwave oven.

[Heidi3]

"Jo, the rumor mill says nurselady has a small room filled with cookbooks. "

oh yeah thanks for bringing that up again!..I will never live that down!!!

It is beyond insane you guys ..and I would have never told anyone about this ...Desertthorn outed me on this...it is NOT a room ...really ...I have a closet in the hallway I converted to a book shelf...then I have boxes in my closet and some under my bed...my favorite cookbooks are the regional ones from "granges" (come to think of it what the heck is a grange?)....the stories and history you get from these old cookbooks...when we were stationed in Panama I found an church that was the beginning of my addiction ....they had a thrift store full off ethnic cookbooks! for 10-25 cents each! Most from one owner who was from France living with her husband who was a Canal Zone employee..she was not very happy there....and wrote little blurbs about cooking in Panama...she hated American meat!..and American bread...pretty much everything she wanted to go home......it was enthralling to me to listen to her voice and personality... she so passionately talked about a french fried pigs foot recipe...I almost cooked them!.....anyway..I love food history around the world...Ethnic cuisine where it began ..why people eat some of the things they do ....sometimes it is a lonely world a cooking fanatic lives in...even with cooking shows!......BTW Desertthorn will not admit how big her cookbook collection is....but let me tell you girlfriend has some serious issues herself...she just does not contain them....they are everywhere!!! and I think I have a shelf of cookbooks she purchased read and left here!!!! :hug

You guys are great ..not everyone should love cooking those who don't usually make a great audience!!! and every cook needs a great audience!!! We have BIG egos!!!...
..Nullo I found a friend when I was in school, living alone and broke years ago .... he hated to cook..he paid for the groceries and I cooked and left food in his apartment for him for dinner when he got of work!...it was a great friendship...he gushed over my cooking ..and I got to cook!!!....we both saved money because he paid for most of our dinners and stopped going out to eat!...it is so fun to feed people!....find a friend who is good at something you need done and hates to cook but loves to eat and trade!!!!

[IrishIrish]

I come from generations of women who loved and collected cookbooks!

When my great-grandmother and grandmother died, while the rest of the family was looking at furniture in their respective homes, I was in the kitchen collecting the recipes and the cookbooks. I even got some gadgets including some serving dishes and the kielbasa horn we used for making kielbasa and the lamb mold used for making the Easter cake we all enjoyed! I have collected hundreds of the "fundraiser" type cookbooks from churches, clubs, etc. Those and my Polish and Mexican books are my favorite.

So, yes ... I'm Jo and I'm a cook book a-holic.

[sharbur2002]

Well, I am far behind in the Cookbook collecting! I have about 25 Cookbooks including the one I bought when I got married 32 years ago. I think I got it with Green Stamps.

I like to buy the Cookbooks from local areas that I have visited. I have one that is from my hometown of Memphis, TN and I have another from Charleston, SC because I lived there for 5 years. I used to subscribe to some of the cooking magazines, but gave up all my subscriptions long ago (I still have the magazines).

I was not trying to spam the board when I asked if anyone had Master Cook. I have the program and am having a ball setting it up, downloading recipes and entering in some of my old recipes that I have collected over the years. Some of my old recipes are written on pieces of paper that are falling apart or are cut out of magazines. Many recipes are written on the blank front and back pages of my origional cookbook.

Just wanted to know if anyone else used this program.

Sharon

[not2late]

You're way to advanced for me Sharon---I'm a rip out of newspapers and stuff into the Big Bad Binder of Recipes type gal. Though these days I'm doing alot of printing from the Net too.

I also pick up regional cookbooks from places I've been. At one of the schools I attended, one of the professors privately published recipes she developed and collected over the years. I've been trying to obtain a copy of them, but the email address listed in the alumni journal isn't correct (damn them!)