Who are the best cooks in your family?

Like many questions that are posed, any answer has to be prefaced by "It all depends". So it depends on what sort of cooking. Mum is awesome in doing the "iron chef" routine. This involves me putting out all the oddments that seem to accumulate in a refrigerator, anything from bits of cheese, leftover vegetables and cold meats, sauce bottles or other jars with an inch of product left at the bottom and then saying come up with something for supper.

Inevitably she doesn't disappoint. She also has quite a few very good dishes that she does from scratch. I also love to cook and bake which can lead to issues as to whose turn it is to use the kitchen! This love was fostered by my mother who encouraged me from a very early age.

My mother and grandmother ( Little Nana) were excellent bakers and Nana's father, Samuel Wedgwood, was a professional baker so I suspect that this is where a lot of the knowledge and skill came from. Since retirement I have taught myself to bake with some success and a few failures along the way. I am getting to the point where there are more good bakes than bad bakes and I can sense by the feel of the dough what adjustments may need to be made to eliminate a potential problem.

On the cooking front, and Rhona may disagree, but I think I am more adventurous. Right now I am learning to cook Indian food, not just curries but many dishes that have totally different flavourings and cooking techniques. Part of this learning process is using different cuts of meat or different vegetables so by necessity I am also learning more about butchery which I am thoroughly enjoying, perhaps not surprising as there are butchers on one side of the family.

This has led to an attempt to make sausages and similar products with mixed success. So as I started off by saying "It all depends"............