How DID I learn to cook? Part 1

How did I learn to cook? This is a question that I am frequently asked. Some even ask if I went to culinary school. First of all, I AM TOTALLY flattered about that question! If only my Father could have heard that one. I too am very disbelieving of how the kid who "hated everything except hot dogs and the skin off Kentucky Fried Chicken" (Joe Jackson's words) could have ended up knowing how to make all of this incredible food, let alone EAT IT! Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a person inspired by associative reference. You say something to me, it reminds me of something I know, heard, done or a place I have been, and then I tell you about that. Let me say up front that you are very kind for indulging me as sometimes my thought process stretches that connection far enough that I need to explain how I associate these subjects. Food is no exception. It means something to me and is part of my history. Not at first though. Growing up, I ate an average assortment of food served be a standard parent of the 60's and 70's. Or at least I refused to eat it. There were little glimpses of food inspiration. Simple things. My grandmother making the finest crab apple jelly ever, her icebox sliced cucumbers, her old fashioned knowledge of how things were made was amazing. Sadly, during the 1970's, there were so many people from that generation around that I did not realize the greatness I was witnessing. Little did I know, that within a decade, we would all notice that the generation that lived though the great depression and the second world war would begin disappearing so quickly and that in 20 years, even the next generation would have many meet with an untimely end and with them even the echos of the home grown resourcefulness of those earlier generations would be facing extinction. I thought I was doing great when at 20, when I lived in Port Aransas, Texas, I figured out how to make an Upside-down Spice Dome Cake. Well I did not have a cake pan so I cooked it in a stainless bowl. I thought I was a hero when I mastered a Durkee cooking bag for spare ribs. One late spring Saturday night, my Dad and I were sipping beers, throwing darts, went to the Family Center IGA. There they had a cast iron frying pan and shrink wrapped in it were a pound of bacon, dozen eggs and pound of butter, all for a good deal. It had a strange effect on me. I wanted this collage of cooking completeness. More so, I NEEDED the cast iron pan! It had stirred a primal need to make fire, smack some cast iron down on it, and just fry something! So we brought this back to his house and talked about the cast iron and how to treat them with the respect they deserved. We made the bacon and eggs. It is funny that I think about that now. There was an undercurrent there. At times there is a peice of ice floating in the water and others....we'll this was the tip of the Berg. My Dad was an amazing cook. I loved his creativity though. In the summer of 86, my Grandfather bought him a microwave. At the time, microwave's in Port Aransas were like phones; you knew some people that had one, but it was like 1 out of every 10 people you knew. Myy father stayed up till like 2 AM trying to cook many things in a microwave that back then just did happen. This would be me today, I had a similar experience when I was trapped by an infomercial to buy a Nu-wave Oven back on 07. Another 10 years would pass. Oh I would grill food like other pathetic American men who think they cook. But I had no instinct,no feel or taste. When my father died in 96, I found an index card of a recipe he cut off the back of a french fried onion can. It was called Turkey Stuffing Bake. He made it for us inSeptember of 1984 when we had just moved to Ave J in Port Aransas. My Diet consisted mostly of Whataburger at the time. I was amazed that I loved this dish because (as I quote my past self here) "it has peas in it." 12 years later, it was an intimate connection with Joe Jackson in the past. My Dad continued to surface in my maturity. With it, a gravitational pull towards what you can do with food.