When I was a kid and my mom made tomato soup, she would cut buttered toast into squares and float them on top of each bowl.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My mother gave me a real kick toward cooking, which was that if I wanted to eat, I'd better know how to do it myself.
Soups are a great way to introduce a lot of vegetables to kids. Stir-fries, too, because they contain so many different shapes and colors.
In university, in a vain attempt to stave off the frosh fifteen, I used to melt fat-free cheese over broccoli, onions and cauliflower in the cafeteria microwave. That earned me few friends.
We were never the family that ordered pizza, and my mom never came home with a bucket of fried chicken. My mom always made home-cooked meals. We always sat down at the dinner table as a family.
My aunt and uncle would come over when my mom was making this, or we would go over there when they were making that. That's what food is.
My mother doesn't cook; my grandmother didn't cook. Her kids were raised by servants. They would joke about Sunday night dinner. It was the only night she would cook, and apparently it was just horrendous, like scrambled eggs and Campbell's soup.
At home, I make a large batch of tomato sauce and freeze it in meal-size portions in freezer bags.
Every morning when I woke up, my mother was already in the kitchen making breakfast. It was always the same: steamed rice, pickled vegetables, grilled fish and miso soup. Each day there was something different in the soup such as tofu or potatoes.
My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.
I was mainly raised by a working mum who didn't have much time or inclination for making food. So I had three or four basic meals: fish fingers and a tomato; a packet scotch egg and a tomato; pasta with a tin of tomatoes; and extra mild plastic-y cheddar chopped into cubes with bits of cucumber.