Introduction to this site and me.
I didn't really start cooking until I went away to University (in 1984) but I lived with great cooks, my mother's cooking is incredible, her mother owned a catering company, and I lived with a cousin for a year before Uni who cooked a new meal every night from different cookbooks. My mother read cookbooks like books and it was common to discuss meal prep and leftovers. Growing up I didn't cook much myself but I got right into it when I had to do it living on my own. I put myself through school so I didn't have a lot of money for food and I had to be creative. I joined the vegetarian club because it was a $3 membership and they met once a week, demonstrated how to cook a dish, and then fed us a full meal. I hadn't really planned on becoming a vegetarian but for $3 I was going to get 13 meals and by the end of the quarter I realized I had stopped eating meat. I was enjoying the challenge of learning about all the different beans and lentils and even rice that there...