There is another thread on this board about screaming kids in restaurants, a rather lively discussion, I think one reason why there are so many screaming kids in restaurants these days is because too many parents either don't know how to or unwilling to cook at home, so ladies and gents, do you cook at home?

I'm no master chef, but I do most of the cooking, since I'm usually home before my wife at the end of work day, I'll get supper going, wife home from work and dinner will be ready shortly, after the meal, we'll clean up together.

I was chatting with the daughter of a close friend awhile back, after college and a couple of yrs in the work force, this young lady's cooking skill consist of:

1. Opening can food and heating up the content.
2. Boil water for instant soup mix.
3. Microwave frozen packaged dinner.

My brother in law, 60s going onto 70s, don't how to cook an egg if his lives depend on it, if for any reason my sister in law isn't around to make supper, his options are: open a box of cornflake, or order takeout.

I hardly ever prepare an elaborate and fancy meal since master chef I'm not, but I do think some basic knowledge of cooking is an important survival skill just like how to maintain ones physical and financial health; staying out of trouble; able to swim; drive; safe handleing of firearms...etc.

On a related note, how often your family have meals together? I was a bit taken aback when one of the guy at work mentioned his family seldom sat down and eat together, seems because of different work schedule, teen age son and daughter's after school activities/part time job and such, its almost impossible to have everyone together to share a meals during weekdays, but even on weekends, his wife usually don't do much cooking, so most of the time is takeout fry chicken; pizza; Chinese food... kids will be busy with video game/cell phone/texting, my guy will watching golf or football, so everyone just fill up a dish and back to their respective task.

The reason there are so many dysfunctional and broken families, not to mention screaming kids in resturants, I think one of the contributing factor is families hardly ever sat down and share meals together because parents can't or too busy to cook, pretty sad, I must say.

Yes, I cook.

Not everyday, but I am pretty good at it, and I enjoy it. I do every night that I am home. the kids are bigger, and I have teaching seminars or performances or rehearsals many nights....but we still make time to eat together at the big table on a regular basis.

When I do the canning, or special baking etc, the youngest likes to help. Since she is big into science we have a lot of teachable moments about chemistry, vapor pressures, temp & pressure, chemical vs physical changes, etc She even likes to help make what she doesn't like to eat.

She also likes to help eat a lot of it.

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Soli Deo Gloria

I do pretty much all the cooking, nothing fancy but it's usually pretty good and I enjoy it!

Cooking is one of my favorite things to do that I can share with family and friends... I cook most the meals in my household much to the delight of my wife! My Dad had a rule that no matter what we were doing or how busy our schedules got Sunday dinner was family time... Bad news if we showed up late! I did not appreciate it much then but now I wish I got to sit down with the family every Sunday... We are spread out all over the country... It is a family tradition I miss!

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pax

I've been pretty much on my own since I was 15. In those days, before I went into the Army, if I wanted to eat, I had to cook it myself. So, I learned and continued to do the cooking even after I was married.

I enjoy it, though the after meal clean up is my wife's job. I prefer things just the way they are.

Bob

I do all the cooking. My wife was disabled in 2003, and it's hard for her to stand for any length of time. Fortunately, I learned to cook when I was young...both my parents worked, and I would start supper when I got home from school. I enjoy cooking anyway, so it's not a problem.

Now, cleaning up is something I definitely DO NOT enjoy...but, I have learned to clean while I am cooking, so that all the dishes left to be cleaned when the meals are over are those we are eating from. The pots, pans, and cooking utensils are all done. That makes it a lot easier.

^^^^ and I like to eat.Cooking can be fun and the rewards are yummy.I've been baking a little lately and having a good time trying to make the perfect Key Lime cake.They keep on getting better and Key Lime pie is a bit old but I have the best recipe.I have to use my limes up or give them away.
Next...Key Lime cookies.

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Dum vivo cano

Yup, sure do.I learned during college when I realized I was going to starve on frozen dinners.

I do. As a bachelor living alone, and often unpredictably called away by work, I don't usually fix anything on the order of casseroles or etc. that produce multiple-serving quantities of anything that can't be frozen in single-serving packages, but I like to prepare my own food to the greatest extent practicable. This often means just cooking some meat on the balcony grill, with side dishes purchased at the deli, etc. But, ocassionaly (when it's not so hot that you cringe at using the oven while the AC system is trying to pull the interior temperature down by 35 degrees, and the electric meter is burning out bearings ...) I'll make up a batch of meatloaf in individual-serving size loaf tins, make a big batch of chile, or etc. There's a lot of freedom available with my lifestyle, but elaborate food preparation is constrained ...

People in similar circumstances might well profit from owning a copy of the delightful cookbook, The Pleasures of Cooking for One, by Judith Jones, a protege of Julia Childs (Knopf, 2009, ISBN 978-0-307-27072-6) from which I've learned a lot about equipping a single-person kitchen, and a bunch of great recipes and suggestions...

We both prepare our meals. Preparation and cleaning up the mess takes us twice as long as it used to. When I had to go on a low sodium diet that made meal selection much harder. Most of the good stuff is off limits.

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Mighty 90's,Trying 4 a 100!

I have been cooking, or trying to cook almost my whole life..I like to cook...my brothers cook, and my Dad cooks....
Cooking is a survival skill true, but if you want to eat good food, make it yourself....
I spend some time every night trolling the recipe sites, as well as the gunboards...HAHAHAHAH

Yep, I cook when I'm home, mostly out of self defense.

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Insert short witty words here

Good topic OP. I'm still young at the ripe old age of 22, but have cooked most of my meals since I was in my early teens. Learned to cook through necessity continued because I find it a little relaxing after the end of a long day. Where I live I can pretty much grill year round and being in college I can cook a cheap pork loin about 40 different ways now. My favorite meal that brings in lots of 'friends' is a giant pot of gumbo.

My long time girlfriend can clean and cook her own fish/deer. It's a good thing.

I'm a widower, so if I don't cook, I don't eat. I'm basically lazy so I dont do complicated meals. My thory is that when you cook, cook up a lot, and fill the freezer with it.

i like to cook

the wife and i will go out to eat once in a while, but i would rather prepare
my own food.....actually we fight over who gets to cook....but having worked
in a restaurant kitchen makes me realize that i would rather prepare my own food....dont get me wrong...we do go out to eat, but not as much as we used to...

the amount of money spent in a restaurant put towards food bought in the store goes way lots further anyway

eating together......as a kid, our family always ate together....and i tried as
much as i could to keep that tradition with my family as the kids were in the house and growing up...in spite of crazy schedules and all that...there
is just something good about the whole family sitting down together and
eating and talking about how the day went...

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bullets have lawyers attached

My late mom taught all her kids how to cook. My two brothers are chefs. My wife is a great cook but we split the cooking since her schedule is crazy busy at times.

I bake a lot of the bread we eat but she makes most of the desserts.

I cook also, and I actually enjoy it most of the time. Most of mine is limited to quick prep, so I use already prepared ingredients like sauces or sauce mixes to save time, but when I have the time I like to try things from scratch. Most of the time it turns out pretty well, but every once in a while it ends up in the garbage and I learn something from it.

I would really like to take a cooking class someday.

Yes I do. I cook when I am home and my wife works and she cooks when she is home. I am on the road and eating out 3-4 days a week so it can get crazy but when we are both home we don't open many cans or thaw out anything but meat.

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Front sight and squeeze

My grandfather was a cook in a lumber camp here in the NW. He'd hunt game and my grandmother would cook it. She taught me to bake (Rules: always use: butter, not margarine; Gold Medal Flour; Crisco=not other brands!). My mom taught us a little. She was a Mrs Cleaver mom. As a bachelor, I'd often cook for dates. That's where I learned about presentation!

I always played in the kitchen. When I went back to school, my wife told me that school WAS my job. When I started grad school, we had an elk and a big Wyoming mule deer in the freezer. That's what we pretty much lived on for two years (with dried beans=lots of chili). While working on my thesis, I'd work until noon or so, then I'd watch the Cooking Channel. Wife would come home to whatever I had learned the day before (Thank You, Emeril!). We actually gained weight while we were "starving students".

First year we were here, two of my biologists and I went off for a week elk hunt. We had beef burgenion (sp?) with wild rice and fresh mushrooms (picked by my botanist); Venison fajitas with home-made frijoles; venison stir fry. Our receptionist referred to it as the "Nancy Boys go Hunting".

When we finally bought our own home, we started growing fresh herbs so I'd have things I couldn't find in stores up here. That morphed into vegetables and fruits.

I enjoy cooking. Tonight will be stir-fried shrimp and Thai basil with a fried rice/almond pilaff. Last night was home-made spaghetti made with our own tomatoes, basil, oregano, fennel & peppers.

Guess you'd say I cook.

I'm somewhere between not cooking and very little.
When my mom was a pre-school kid she pulled a skillet of cooking bacon off the stove, spilled the grease all over her and then it caught fire. As a result we were not allowed in the kitchen when we were growing up so never learned to cook.
My sister was in the same boat - The only thing that she knew how to make were cinnamon apples and smores that she learned how to cook in the Girl Scouts.
Now she's the head cook and lunch lady at a high school - Go figure.

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In dog years I'm dead.

I actually enjoy cooking my own meals, and must say I am rather good at it.

I like food a certain way and honestly cannot buy it anywhere that meets my approval. Nothing fancy, just basic things like pork chops, steak, meat loaf, spaghetti sauce (Recipe obtained from a fine woman who lived in the North End in Boston), and of course my world famous stuffed cabbage (Polish people are great at making them).

Most of my meals are prepared using cast iron (that should tell you something) nothing beats it, nothing.

I do go out to restaurants now and then but basically enjoy my own prepared meals much more.

I tried the frozen food and micro wave approach years ago and realized that a good meal takes time. I'm sure there are a few here which would agree.

So that is it, I'm in the kitchen feeding myself and I am one happy camper.

Hope I made some of you hungry.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

Yes. Here's my latest meal. Don't be scared. It's tastier than it looks.

Attached Images

FishHeadSoup.jpg (55.1 KB, 48 views)

Ya got some great looking stuff there Barb

Only kidding with you

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

I cook most all our meals since I retired 22 years ago.

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NRA Life 1969
OGCA

I cook. Nothin' fancy. The usual male stuff involving meat and some sort of cheese or tomato sauce.

My favorite thing to do is use some sort of boxed or canned prepared mix and add a whole lot of my stuff to it.

Here's my Zatairan's Dirty Rice. I start with one large box of Dirty Rice, one small box of Black Beans & Rice then add onions, mushrooms and a couple pounds of sweet Italian sausage. And some extra spices, of course. I would use hot Italian sausage but my sissy wife can't handle that.

It's good food, so it MUST be protected.

I like to cook. Have a fresh world's best chocolate pie ready right now, come on over.

Only when I want to eat.

I'm actually a pretty good cook if I do say so myself. I don't cook as much as I used to, but I can whip up a pretty tasty meal if I want to!

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Misty

I do all the cooking up to, and including, thanksgiving and Easter dinners. I am teaching my daughters to cook - my 8 year old makes waffles from scratch and my nine year old's specialty is creamed chicken over puff pastry shells. I do all the knife work and removing pans from hot ovens - they do all the rest.

As soon as I get my J. C. Higgins model 41 I paid $50 for restored they will start shooting their first single shot 22 rifle.

Good cooks and good shots - what more can you ask for!

I love to cook. I learned how to cook when I was young since my mom and dad both worked.
Here are a few pictures - all with protection.











































and of course bacon




I've got lots more, but I didn't want to get carried away

I hate cooking. I'm lousy at it and am smart and honest enough to admit it.

I especially hate cooking here, in my pest hole apartment. I've got one sink and no dishwasher, so "clean as you go" is pretty much out of the question.

In the past, the vent coming from the stove hood hasn't been properly screened, so on multiple occasions, I've had dead birds in the stove hood, along with blood, feathers and bird dung on my stove top. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in one's cooking environment.

Everything I "cook" either goes in the microwave or on the George Foreman grill. In the past, I've made a tolerable steak in the microwave. My mother expressed distaste over this because the steak wouldn't be "browned". I told her I couldn't care less if it were green, since I was planning on eating rather than looking at it.

My cousin in Chicago on the other hand, loves to cook and is a good cook. She's taken over family Christmas cooking duties from her mother who's in a nursing home now with Alzheimer's. She's often dissatisfied with her cooking, but I tell her, "You're asking the wrong person. Compared to my cooking it's fantastic."

If you gave Taliban prisoners my cooking it would be considered a human rights violation.

I guess I will have to be the one to buck the trend. I do not cook and I do not grill. I do not enjoy cooking, do not want to learn to do something I do not enjoy, and I just stay away from the stove, oven and grill. Now, I also need to say that I do expect my wife to cook for me. I can get by on sandwiches with chips, pickles etc. My wife is a great cook, and luckily passed her ability on to our son. My son is a chef, degree, experience the works. He chooses now to be a banker and use the other degrees he earned. So, I am one lucky guy. My wife is a great cook, my son is a great cook, my daughter in law is a great cook,and I LOVE to eat. It just doen't get any better than that.

"There is another thread on this board ..." etc. Times change. People change. Sometimes that change is not for the better. Sometimes it is. The rise of the two worker family as normative reflecting economic realities and prizing individual over family interest/needs will not go away. The meals I grew up enjoying as a child were cooked by my mother who was a full-time homemaker. My wife leaves the house at 5 a.m. and gets home about 5:30 p.m. I get up at 6:30 a.m. and after coffee leave for the office not later than 8:15 a.m. Last night I got home right at 9 p.m. Today I started with a Bible study at 9 a.m. and will this evening after Wednesday night Bible study and choir practice return home about 8:15 p.m. Many men and women have similar schedules. The time does not exist for the traditional slow-cooked meals of my childhood.

But, we cook! Specifically my wife is an accomplished master of cooking. She has been baking bread and biscuits since the first Sunday evening of our marriage when we were spending our first night in our first apartment. Upon returning home, she can usually have an excellent meal on the table not later than 6 p.m., sometimes a minute or two later. As for me, I am an accomplished grill master! And I have been known to produce some remarkable culinary works of art commonly known as stews, chili, various types of vegetables, etc. I do not help clean up the kitchen as my wife is never satisfied with the way I put things into the dishwasher. But, I do take care of cleaning the bathroom.

I would make one suggestion. Do not listen to the t.v. or radio during a meal. Sit in the dinning area and listen to one another. One of the most enjoyable memories I have of my daughters is the sound of their voices and the wonderful stories and odd bits of information they would share during dinner. In their younger years there were a few times when things were tight. A meal might consist of stewed potatoes and thin cornbread and iced tea. But our daughters never knew what was going on. Around the table we talked and laughed. Today they know what was going on. But they have often said they "never knew what we didn't have." We focused on what we did have. A simple good meal shared around the table in the evening made a big difference in our family. I would encourage everyone to make a point of focusing on what matters. Family time spent around the dinner table pays dividends every evening and on through life. JMHO. Sincerely. brucev.

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<><

I cook and enjoy it very much. My wife and I share household cooking responsibilities.

My paternal Great-Grandfather required that all the boys learn at least basic cooking skills, and this became the tradition in my family – my Dad and I just carried it well beyond “basic cooking skills”.

give me a recipe, the ingredients, and the necessary cooking tools and i can cook up the dish on the recipe card. But unfortunately do to my very overprotective mother i am not allowed to cook. she's afraid i will destroy her kitchen.

I learned to cook in the Boy Scouts. Also like to bake. Nothing fancy, but since for me food is as much a matter of quantity as quality, I have found being able to prepare basics well is more fun than constantly experimenting with exotica.

Why cook when there is Lean Cuisine? Seriously, I have one specialty dish - its a killer Mac & Cheese using a white sauce and 3 three cheeses, with a dash of fresh Rosemary and fresh cooked/crumbled bacon. I do enjoy grilling as long as a "quality" adult beverage is close by. That is about involved as I get.

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NRA Certified Instructor

I know exactly what you mean about the low sodium diet. I'm also on a sodium restricted diet. I always knew certain foods were high in sodium, but was amazed when I had to start checking labels. Practically everything is loaded with sodium. Even the "low sodium" foods, like soup, is still very high in sodium. No wonder Americans have high blood pressure!

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Misty

Then I say - Crank up that bird infested stove and start cooking for them --- They deserve nothing better.

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In dog years I'm dead.

I love to cook. I like to get very creative , especially with the spice cabinet. I hate to clean up though. There's a great little butcher shoppe on the way home from work , and I probably use my grill probably 300 days a year. Got a pork tenderloin today , and will mix up a batch of my special spice rub and marinade. It'll get grilled Friday nite.

My daughter is gluten intolerant, so I would imagine I cook much like you and ancient-one do. No mixes, no boxes, no packets, everything from scratch. Sodium is probably harder to avoid, but you can't imagine how many things have wheat, wheat flour, gluten, barley, rye, or modified food starches in them.

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Insert short witty words here

I usually do all my cooking on the weekend. I make 3 or so big batches of stuff that will keep in the fridge and eat that for the week. I don't go out much.

I love to cook.
I find that cooking and eating are one of the pleasures of life.

I love to cook....I never had time when I was working 60 hours a week. Now that I'm retired and the wife isn't I get to cook for both of us. She's not complaining either...

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Get off my lawn.....

Just like Grand Torino, I am retired and wife is still working. I buy all the groceries and do most of the cooking for the family. Two kids still at home.
I enjoy cooking and must admit that I am pretty darn good at it.
Got to be careful while going out for groceries, if I pass a gun shop, American Legion Hall, golf course or bar, it may take a while.

Stop! Stop! Stop!! I'm trying to lose weight, and all I see is the most delicious looking food ever produced (except Barb's fishead soup). I barely fit through the door now; you guys are going to do me in.

Tony C,

I do a lot of cooking, nothing fancy, but pretty darn good if I say so myself.

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I am a sheep dog!
1601 (ret)

I love to cook and I do it as much as my wife will let me.

She has a culinary degree and as much fun as it is for me to make chowder or chicken and dumplings or whatever, it's MORE fun to watch her sit at the table while I cook. She watches me, twitching and smoking from her ears, while I prep with no refinement whatsoever to my technique.

I cook some. I was raised by great cooks and a little of it rubbed off. I really like to do a porketta. There's not much to cooking it. The butcher shop does the hard work, selecting the spices. I like a lot of fennel and cayenne.

My wife's oldest daughter used to suffer from a severe eating disorder: she was a vegetarian, and had been one for as long as I had known her. One Thanksgiving, I put a plate of porketta in front of her, and she tried it, just to be polite. Well, it cured her on the spot. Now she eats bacon, steak, bratwurst, chorizo, you name it.

Although my skills are modest, I am pleased to be able to say I helped turn this young lady's life around.

HEY! If I served that soup to you, you wouldn't be able to get enough. By the time it hits your plate, it's a clear, sweet broth with diced carrots and potato, and a bit of chopped dill floating on top.

And it's healthy eating. In 3 months I've lost two pants sizes. Of course having no car helps too - I have to carry the groceries back from the store so I'm selective about what I buy.

This guy gave us soup, 4 good steaks, and salted fish, which is very easy and delicious. You salt the meat slabs with a 3:1 salt:sugar, wrap in foil for a couple of days (set on plate to catch the juices), and you have the most tender, tasty cold fish you could ever hope for.

Barb, you eat that COLD?
Ain't you worried about gettin' "mad fish"?