Home ec. or lessons for scratch cooking

[PamNY]

I disagree in some ways that poverty = possible lack of cooking skills.

No amount of cooking skill will solve the problem of access to fresh food. Here is an article that explains the matter in my city. Other cities have similar issues.

The link Trek420 posted is very informative -- I hope you looked at it.

[Trek420]

No home ec etc and I had the most incredible example at home. My Mom is a fantastic cook as was my Dad.

Dad baked, especialy yummy breads and biscotti. Mom cooks everything from scratch, she cans, puts stuff up, makes jams and much of it grown on the farm or what was left of the farm (orriginaly 14 acres then down to about 3 acres) and now at 86 cooks stuff grown in her yard or from local Sonoma farm markets.

Both taught me cooking but mostly I got a love of fresh local food. What skills I have I learned at work. I worked my way through art school in kitchens starting with a breakfast joint, a couple other spots in the East Bay's "gourmet ghetto" and my last gig assisting Alison Negrin (Chez Panise, Bridges, Ginger Island ....).

I'd say I'm not a good chef but I love to prep fresh produce and see no reason to get pre-prepped anything. Put away the packaged garlic and the Couisinart and me the French knife!

[OakLeaf]

Put away the...Cuisinart

You mean the "hummus/falafel maker"?

Much easier than grinding chickpeas the traditional way... whatever that might be? I'm guessing in a stone mortar?

(And since I'm using it to grind the chickpeas anyway, in those two instances I'll use it on the parsley - and onion in the case of falafel - as well.)

[Trek420]

Much easier than grinding chickpeas the traditional way... whatever that might be? I'm guessing in a stone mortar?

Kids these days, when I was a kid back in the day we went down to the river and ground the chick peas with our oxen drawn mill wheels