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I started with the Encyclopedia Brown cookbook. It has stories, explains the science a bit (a hit if she likes that) and the recipes are easy-nummy.

Reading and cooking!!! Amazing :)

My dad always started the New Year planning for Holiday festivities by starting German Rumtoff (sp?), but it can be made any time of the year.

Starting in a huge container with a tight-fitting seal, add 1 pint of seasonal fruit of choice (i.e., berries in summer, switching to oranges, switching to apples, switching to pears by winter). Fruit should be scrubbed clean, without peels if they have them, and sliced relatively thin/smushed if berries. Top with 1 quart of clear rum and 1 cup sugar. Cover top with plastic wrap, and seal tightly with lid. Let sit for a month, repeat. Keep adding until Christmas or whenever you feel ready to stop.

The sugar and rum make almost a brandy consistency as the fruit begins to breakdown, and high alcohol rum lessen spoilage. Now that I'm a grownup and can have more than a tiny taste, I dig this when warmed slightly during the holidays. Fruitcakes are made better when you use liquored fruit :)

I just moved to Colorado, and learned (oddly didn't know before) that it is a MAJOR breadbasket of fruits and veggies. I got very excited...

My local Kroger syndicate labels all local produce by local farm name and its location within the state. The one thing missing: Colorado beef! Cowboys roam the range not 10 miles from me, across the street from a large local farm carried in store....but you can't get the beef....

For the server side...

I used to work at a chain Mexican resturant in Texas and we alwas had a good time in the kitchen. Our GM was a Nazi about keeping the line clean, and it showed. However, the line crew would open the far back door when it got too hot for the AC to be efficient. During a slow Sunday afternoon shift, they made a burrito for a customer. I was laughing about how awful it would be if something flew into the food from the door being open. No kidding...the burrito goes out, the customer cuts into it, and a FLY FLIES OUT FROM UNDERNEATH THE TORTILLA!!! The customer promptly vomitted on the floor, the manager yelled everything naughty I've ever heard in English and Spanish and I just about quit that day.

Although I am traveling this weekend, I'll throw out my suggestion: Stuffed onions with bacon and butter. Its a Neely's from the Food Network recipe, and I've always thought it was a great way to celebrate the onion...and bacon :)

My college roommate and I would always joke that our tv show would be called "Dorm room Gourmet." We learned to do amazing things with minimal equipment, i.e., microwave, hot water pot and shower, and with minimal money. Dinners rarely cost more than $2 a person, but we were able to entertain frequently :)

Staples were cheap bread loafs bought the day after baking, tons of vegetables as you can get literally pounds for pennies, bulk cheeses bought with parent's Sam's Club cards, and the giant frozen bag of chicken thighs.

We steered away from prepared food in boxes, and tried to stretch our homemade things as long as possible. My now-husband laughs about how one pot of homemade chicken noodle soup would go for at least two weeks. Homemade breads were made and stretched to point of complete covering with mold, which she usually just peeled off (I have some standards).

Looking back it taught us not only how to budget and survive on the bare minimum, but we eat a lot healthier than others our age as we never got into prepared foods or overly starchy things.

Shrimp with homemade cocktail sauce, oodles of pickles straight from jar, hummas and pita...
Or a ridiculously complicated meal that no person should eat alone: Steak au poirve, bourbon sauce, roast potatoes with sour cream, wilted frisee and spinach salad and crispy green beans

When my local grocery store was out of Pillsbury frozen rolls, I grabbed Sister Schubert's and haven't gone back...my husband actually thought I baked homemade yeast rolls :)

I love my mother-in-law but returning from her house involves a few bathroom stops.

Meals involve at least 1 pound of cheese, 2 types of beef (no pork, no chicken), and lard! Side salad is lettuce, cheese and ranch; vegetables are either canned corn or canned green beans boiled beyond recognition with bacon and more lard.

My poor daughter is gonna have to learn that Grandma does know what a vegetable is...