I love to cook & some of my best memories are cooking with my mom...

My mother and grandmother taught me how to cook in my early age, i had a lot of fun and happy memories with them. My grandmother was a great cook and had lots of delicious recipes that she inherited from her grandmother too and passed to her children and grandchildren, i am happy that she personally taught me how to cook those dishes.

I have memories of my mother cooking and me watching! She didn't let me cook a lot until I was about 16-17. But I remember the holidays and she did some really good cooking. Her and my grandmother. I have recipes from my mother. She always tried to make dinner interesting for us. Even on the semi-holidays, you know, like Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day. There was only my younger brother and myself still at home and I remember coming to the table and next to our dinner plates were small plastic hearts full of chocolates or chocolate novelties for whatever the minor holiday was. She liked to give us little surprises. One Easter when we were teenagers she thought it would be a good idea to give an Easter look to the mashed potatoes. She took small amounts of potato and food colored each one differently. Like Easter eggs. The she used an ice cream scoop to put them in the serving bowl. They were pale pastels - pink, blue, green and yellow. My brother and I commented on the green ones, jokingly telling her she was making us eat moldy potatoes. And we made fun of the other colored ones, too. It was all in good fun. We used to do a lot of teasing. My mom was a good sport and I think we got it from her (the teasing). There was a lot of laughter in our house back then. I miss those days.

I make the whole berry cooked cranberry sauce for the family like my mom used to. She always made a point of making sure we watched the berries start popping.

That is wonderful. I also cook with my family during Christmas. I also bake fruit cakes. After cooking for Christmas Eve, we gather and eat. And my family and relatives would judge the taste of the food I cook. It is quite fun. It's good to that cooking can be a bonding time too with family. :-)