I am a paid cook. Jokes I work at McDonald's

I guess it's hard for some people to learn and some might think it's a natural talent, although I think it's highly possible to learn. Having grown up in a house where my grandmother cooked everyday and watching her most of the time, it's where I picked up the things I know now. I don't think there are many occasions where my grandmother took me aside and taught me how to make some of the food.

I cook pretty decent. I'm pretty good at barbecuing, I make a mean steak.

I'm also decent at seafood. I make a decent tuna, lobster and shrimp.


Nothing beats a steak with fried onions and blue cheese.

I'm good at pasta, soups, rice, sautés, chinese and japanese noodles and some savoury pies and several dishes grilled and au gratin, but I wish I were at least decent at cooking sweets, I suck at them. I'm decent at cooking beef steak, quite good at cooking pig, but not good for roast beef and roast chicken. I can make decent pizza too and yesterday I made a tasty bread with pumpkin, sunflower, sesame and flax seeds, as shops were closed and traffic blocked for the flood. Usually, though, I prepare frozen ready dishes to save time, but I almost always add some fresh ingredients (usually vegetables) to them to improve their taste and give the feel of not frozen food. And I make decent sushi, particularly with trout roe, when my mom removes and keeps it apart before roasting the trout.

Edit:

PS While I can cook some tasty dishes with shrimps and other crustaceans, I prefer to prepare fish raw, as I'm no good at cooking it (except  sautéed for some sauces and seasonings for pasta and rice or breaded or battered and fried or very oily fishes I can make au gratin without their mouthfeel becoming too dry).

I do wish I had a recipe from my aunt or great aunt to make homemade noodles, because I love making my own broth for soup (especially with winter coming up), although I know it can be a pain in the butt.

I'm a pretty decent cook, though I rarely go off-recipe or create my own things.

When I'm not working overtime I generally try to cook 3-4 nights a week. I generally split that between easy things like burgers, stir fry, fajitas, stew, etc and fun new creations.

I am cook a few things, I guess.

The most basic and widespread home recipe for the dough for egg pasta, used for tagliatelle, tagliolini, tortellini, cappelletti, some noodles and other kinds of plain or filled pasta, should be 12 fresh eggs for 1kg flour. The industry is allowed to use down to just a minimum 4 eggs for 1kg flour, and besides being mandatory in Italy, this actually forces them to use durum wheat semolina as flour to allow the pasta to stay "al dente" (firm, the only acceptable way to cook pasta in Italy, unless it's added to vegetable and legumes soups, where longer cooking can be tolerated). Using 12 eggs, pasta will stay "al dente" even using plain wheat flour, that should be the choice for traditional northern Italian recipes, as durum wheat was once used only in central and southern Italy. Durum wheat instead is really mandatory, not only by law, for water dough Italian pasta, except potato gnocchi, where potato is the main ingredient, though (and excessive use of wheat flour to keep the dough together will produce gnocchi that "strozzano", literally that "choke", unless they are really small, not so dramatic actually, it's a way to say they'll be difficult to swallow) .

Kneading 12 eggs dough is quite a tough job!

I got to get the recipe my great aunt uses for her homemade noodles/gnocchi. She's 85 years old and still makes homemade noodles/gnocchi/ravioli, as well as pizzelles and other cookies.

exactly

I think that something as important as cooking should be taught to every child/teenager.