i love to cook.

Don't those pictures look all yummy together? It is making me itch for summer to be here so i can enjoy Grandma's cherry tree and go to the farmer's market. If i was brave I'd attempt a raised garden....not that brave yet. If anyone has some convincing for me, leave me a note in the comment. Like tell me how easy it is and how great the rewards are, hahahaaa.

When I was just a little girl, oh say, just about three years old, Mom often found me standing on the kitchen chair pushed up to the stove front, stirring soup in a pot and asking in that squeaky toddler voice “why not get hot, mommy?” It was beyond my comprehension to turn the stove on......thank goodness. That could have been the end of it all. Anywho. Always at Mom’s side in the kitchen, attached at her hip I would stay, begging momma to let me help her at many a meal. I supposed I should give a little back story and tell how I came to love cooking so much. As a child, I spent almost every day (or what seemed like everyday) at Grandma and Grandpa Pearce’s house which always ended with a trip to the farm, just a few miles from their humble ranch-style home. I’d help do the chores that come with farming and gardening. Day in and day out, we’d spend digging in the dirt, digging up potatoes, or yanking out carrots. Or we’d sit on the rocker on the front porch with a warm summer breeze blowing snapping a bowl of beans or hulling a mess of peas. Oh, and I’ll never forget all the times I’d race brother to the chicken coop to collect the eggs. They were brown eggs. If it was a good egg-laying day, we might have found a “double-yoker”. During those years, I watched how people around town admired Grandma for her cooking and baking skills. Heck, I did too. She was brilliant in the kitchen. I remember being at her house often and having that giddy school-girl giggle just thinking of what kind of masterpiece she’d come up with after gathering all those fresh vegetables from the garden. So there I stayed, in the kitchen, right on her heels just waiting for my chance to pick up on a little tip here or lend a helping hand there. She was ever so patient with my millions of questions as I tried to learn the tricks to her trade. Now that I’m grown and have a family of my own, I’m thankful to still have such a burning desire to create delicious meals from fresh ingredients, just like I learned to do years ago at Grandma’s side. But beyond that, I’m thrilled that, without prodding, my own young girls are at my heels every meal firing away the same questions I remember asking Grandma and begging to help with each step of the process. A passion for cooking. I guess you could say, it’s in my genes.


(and yes, this means i didn't get a HOF call....so now you get to see!)