Kitchen

[SandPiper]

To this day I am a nervous wreck when having people over for dinner. I worry about everything. By the time the night is over I have a splitting headache. 

Full disclosure here. When we were first married I had this bright idea to have in-laws over for dinner. I made roasted turkey. No stuffing since I didn’t know how to make it at the time. I never made a turkey before but how hard could it be. The turkey is roasting, everything is going great. Put the beautiful turkey on the platter, take it to the table and DH is carving. My face was beet red when he pulled out the pouch with the gizzards in it and said “what is this”? To this day, this story has been told at countless gatherings throughout the years. 

[ECBG]

Absolutely!  I loved and quickly passed through my love of Kraft Barbque Sauce.  We had enough of that on chops and chicken, I could have had company stock.  I did make salads, green beans, and other vegies by the barrel having been reared on a farm for so many years.

I think the funniest thing I ever did (and had never made this before), but I made Baked Alaska with homemade fudge sauce, nuts, and a cherry.  I forgot to bake the pie shell first!  (It seems all of the pictures now show soft icecream over cake with browned merangue!  The origonal was on baked pastry and it isn't soggy like cake!).  

Such is age 26.  Luckily I have had extremely few mishaps!

Really though, with a double major in Home Economics (Design concentration) and chemistry I didn't kill DH!

[Desertdi]

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Yes.  What I remember most are the poor results with my first biscuits, cornbread, milk gravy, and pinto beans.   In my family, if you can’t make those 4 things and fry a skillet of potatoes, you can’t cook!   

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I found that out the hard way!

I dated a guy from your neck of the woods. We went camping, he thought I knew how to make sausage gravy and wilted lettuce with dough. 

We broke up not long after. 🤣

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@Snowpuppy   Uh huh...........I dated a guy who wanted me to cook like his grandma.    I said, "You actually remember that far back?"    End of that relationship............

[ID2]

Oh I never was a cook or good at it. So I have nothing to shudder about. I finally got the knack of cooking just a few years ago when we retired. 

[novamc1]

Having always been a rather confident type who didn't know cooking required some knowledge and skill (which I had not yet developed),  I attempted to cook a Thanksgiving turkey dinner for my parents once I finally got my own apartment after graduating from college.

Ummmmmmmmm......the turkey was seriously underdone, and I don't even remember what kind of disasters the other dishes were.  I seem to remember a rather amused expression on Mom's face during that meal, but no one said anything about the turkey.

I never cooked for my parents again, except after Mom died and we'd have Dad over to for dinner and send him home with plenty of leftovers so he could heat them up during the week.

[PamelaSue72]

I have never believed in stressing out when making a dinner, whether guests are family or friends. I do what I can and do a lot of advance planning, making lists, etc. Cooking is supposed to be fun (or at least I think so) and I actually find it relaxing to cook for people. Even when I was younger and just starting out, cooking was fun for me. I only really stressed out one time and that was the first time my in-laws came for dinner. I think that everything that could go wrong did go wrong and I made up my mind that I was not going through it again. Stress is not fun and what's the purpose of cooking if it's just going to make me crazy? That was the last time I worried about it.

My MIL taught me cooking basics (my own mother didn't want us kids in the kitchen when she cooked because we were always in the way). I got married very young and I think my MIL was afraid her son would starve. She took me under her wing and we'd spend hours in the kitchen making breads and pies, doing all kinds of things. Sure I had problems: my FIL refused to eat the first apple pie I ever made; my husband said it tasted good, even if it didn't look the best. I just kept at it.

I remember one time I made a two-layer pineapple upside down cake. As I was carefully placing the top layer on the filling and bottom layer, it split into pieces and crumbled down off the cake. And we had several friends coming for dinner. Well! I stood there, looking at the cake, and wondering if I should just call the bakery. And then I crumbled the rest of the cake, made some vanilla pudding, layered the cake and pudding into a pretty trifle bowl, made some freshly whipped cream and called it Pineapple Trifle. And it was delicious. Nobody knew what it was supposed to be. And I doubt anybody would have cared.

When our son got older, I made sure he could cook. He makes great bread, he can cook for anybody and nothing bothers him. I wanted him to be able to cook and bake....it was important to me. We are blessed with grandchildren and I will often grab one of the grands and say "Today we're making pizza!" or "Time to make some sticky buns!" and away we go. Evidently it's rubbing off; our 11-year old granddaughter just wrote her own cookbook: Peanut Butter and Chocolate: What's Not to Like?" She's going to be a great cook. She will often call me to see when we can hang out together in the kitchen.

Today, my wonderful MIL is in a nursing home and many of their family kitchen traditions have now fallen to me. I make the doughnuts for Doughnut Day, I do the hot cross buns for Easter, I make the Christmas stollen. I bake tons of cookies. We always have people in for dinner and I enjoy cooking for them. It's just what I do.

[chrystaltree]

No exactly.  I didn't like cooking but I could cook and I could always follow recipes.  I did great when it came to cooking for guests and for holidays but I do shudder at some of the meals I cooked for husband and my girls back in those early days.  

[151949]

My early days of cooking I was a kid at home. My Mom worked full time and didn't get home until 6:30 so she would partially make dinner in the evening before and leave me instructions how to finish the meal. For instance she would make salisbury steak and the gravey & all - I would have to put it in the baking dish and put that in the oven to warm at the time & temp she wrote down , make baked potatoes and heat up a frozen veg.As I got older I did more & more so she would have less to do in the evenings.My first husband thought I was a fabulous cook so all that training served me well.

[Blk&GoldFan]

Remember lots of phone calls to my mom when I was first married to ask how to cook something.  I think the hardest thing for me was shopping for meat at the grocery store.  One of the first memories of baking a pie dough haunts me....I had such a hard time getting it rolled out and into the pie plate.  I finally threw the dough against the kitchen backsplash in frustration!!  I have mastered that task now, but DH still kids me when it's pie baking time and says he needs to leave the house until I'm done!

[Daysdee]

I did some cooking at home and think I started marriage out as a pretty good cook.  However, I have always been nervous when having company for dinner.  My grandma was a wonderful cook, but she seemed not to like to entertain either.   Now that I live alone I don't ever invite anyone to dinner.  I do cook for myself every day and enjoy it.   When the kids were growing up I did have family dinners with grandparents for their birthdays and, of course, baptism, graduation parties for 20-30 people.   When first married my one really bad experience was first time making waffles.  Was given a waffle iron with teflon (which I think was a new thing then).  When I opened it part of the waffle stayed on top and part on the bottom.  Was  a mess to clean up.  I learned to use some oil on the grids even though the book said it wasn't necessary.  The marriage survived!