"When you were hardly even three, you would sit with the Sears catalog on your crossed legs."
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It was a movie that got me into cooking; it was 1989 when Field of Dreams was released and there was a scene in the movie where the first baseman ghost (Chick Gandil) who had been dead for many years says to Ray Kinsilla (Kevin Costner) “You don’t have a cigarette on yah do yah?” So Chick’s been dead for decades and the first thing he wants is a cigarette. Ouch that hurt me – spiritually. I was a smoker and I was suddenly afraid and embarrassed that I would die while being addicted to nicotine.

That wakeup call led me to discover that those with Acidic metabolisms like mine, those who smoke and drink alcohol and ate lots of meat and food products with lots of additives, were more susceptible to addictions then vegetarians whose metabolisms tend towards Alkaline. The local Good Health store helped me with colon and body cleanse products then I went 90%+ Fruit (separate) and Vegetables where I ate very little of prepared foods meaning I took responsibility for preparing my own meals.

For efficiency reasons I ate a lot of raw foods and simple to cook recipes using rice and beans and lots of vegetables. Some boiled and some baked and some vegetable shish ka-bob barbeques.

My story ends with me not being addicted – hooray!

When my kids were young, they eagerly anticipated the Toys R Us holiday gift catalog every November.
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How I progressed from zero cooking to pretty good.
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Intro to Cookery

We were still newlyweds when my husband’s company offered him the chance to work in their London office for a year and of course we took it!   (See Valentine’s Day in Foggytown,  Kinky Boots,  and Laundry Day in London)

I took a leave of absence from my job,  we sublet our apartment,  and since taking our cat would have meant a 6 month quarantine,  we boarded him instead with my mother-in-law.

We rented a lovely little flat off London’s Kings Road,  and to keep me busy while my husband was at the office I decided to take some courses.   A friend suggested City Lit on fabled Drury Lane.

City Lit offered wonderful adult ed courses and I registered for Survey of British Lit;  another class called History Tours of London with weekly field trips around the city;  and a course I badly needed called Intro to Cookery.

To be honest my lack of culinary skills had already become a sensitive issue at home,  and so I hoped that at each class session I’d master a new dish.  (See Bone of Contention)

But truthfully the only cooking tip I remember learning was that lemon juice improves almost everything.   And the only dish I remember learning to cook was roast chicken – in fact I made it for the first time one night when a friend was coming to dinner.

That evening when the chicken was done I took it out of the oven and put it on a large platter planning to carry it out to the table to carve.  But our kitchen was narrow with a few steps leading up to the hall,  and going up those steps with the platter in my hands I tripped and watched helplessly as my lovely roast chicken summersaulted onto the floor.

Meanwhile I heard the two guys chatting away in the next room oblivious to my kitchen catastrophe.   So I lifted the miscreant fowl off the floor and put it back on the platter,  rearranged the garnish around it,  and carried it out to the table.

And despite that one little mishap,  I’m happy to say our dinner was delish!

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

My childhood cookbook was filled with images of perky girls wearing aprons (whatever happened to my aprons?) serving food to guys in sport coats and crew cuts.
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I realized there is nothing very hard about cooking as long as you follow the recipe (and don't pick a recipe with too many steps).
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I've always liked trains, especially those that are clean and fast, and headed south to Pennsylvania Station in New York...
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