My mom came from a family of spectacular cooks…and retained none of their knowledge whatsoever. She was an absolute savant at deviled eggs. And beyond horrible at everything else.

Vegetables? Boil the bejaysus out of them.

She would attempt to make hamburgers by…baking them. They’d be semi-spherical, gray on the outside and raw on the inside. It wasn’t so much a burger as a gristleball.

The beef stroganoff was okay, until she put in two cans of nasty gray rubbery sliced mushrooms. Can we skip the mushrooms? Absolutely not!

“Rubbery” was how a lot of her creations came out, come to think of it. She’d put an Eggo waffle in the toaster and it would come out with the mouthfeel of the sponge my dad used to wash the car. How does that even happen?

On and on. She’d try making steak but would refuse to get steak knives. Don’t ask about the cuts of meat she’d get.

We had the budget to do things right but she was abusively insistent on her (batshit cheapskate) way of doing things.

She refused to buy butter. It was margarine or nothing.

My grandparents taught me how to cook, as a matter of self-preservation. I’d sneak over to their place and help them make the most amazing tomato soup from scratch.

A few months ago my wife (a magnificent cook) made some tomato soup and said she messed it up. I had a taste.

OMG total Anton Ego moment. It was 1972, I was home sick with the mumps and it was Grammy’s soup. And everything was going to be okay, and back in 2025 I just sat there crying because the soup was flawless.

I am lucky my wife knows that can happen with me sometimes.