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My mom and dad were both accomplished cooks but very different. My mother could feed a battalion with straightforward Italian classics but my dad was the MacGyver of the family. He's the one who threw open the cupboards and made stuff up out of thin air. I'm proud to say I inherited the styles of both of them - with a little modern/international thrown in for good measure.

In my elementary school years in Jakarta, I'd clip & collect recipes from magazines and actually cooked from them. Then in my high school years (in the U.S.), I loved watching the cooking shows on PBS: Frugal Gourmet, Great Chefs of the West, Yan Can Cook, etc. (Foodnetwork was still many years away). When I was in college I made an entire Thanksgiving meal for families and friends, substituting the turkey with two huge roast chickens, tweaking the recipes along the way. Everything came out delicious, btw :)

I've always loved cookbooks and cooking magazines. Foodnetwork became my most watched channel. And hooray for food blogs! (even started my own last year).

I guess it was just in early/mid-2000s that I knew what the term 'foodie' was, and realized I've been one as long as I could remember :)

I went through all the children's cookbooks at my local library when I was a kid, and then I started on the adult ones.

Man, I knew I was always getting screwed! The restaurant I worked at never had a staff meal. If we were lucky, the chef would make one plate of the daily special for us to share so that we could sell it. Throughout the night, if food was "mistakenly" ordered, it would go in the back corner for the staff. The management didn't like that though so the manager would come through during the shift to throw out the food. What a waste!

All this nostalgia. I also used to work at a place for what I can only describe as the wrong type of owners. I bet most of you know what I mean...every penny counted, nothing thrown out until it was runny, nothing comped ever.

I rebelled. They lived an hour's drive away, and only wanted to come in to collect the takings once a week. The cash was kept in a wooden cabinet with--I shit you not--a luggage lock on it. I was basically hired so they would have to do as little as possible. The owner would sign a book of blank cheques once a month so I could pay for all our deliveries and payroll.

Our cooks were great...all one big family (literally). I told them the first thing that I wanted was for them to experiment, and let the staff judge. Don't like the meat supplier? Then he's gone. Tomatoes not fresh? We'll get them from somewhere else. And when it's slow, make something not on the menu and let the staff try it. If it's good, it goes on the menu. And no bad food will ever leave this kitchen. So the staff would gather for taste-tests almost every afternoon. We got some winners, I'll tell you. A fresh-grind burger with sauteed onions and jalapenos with crispy bacon under melted slices of cheddar on a soft roll. A grilled bacon and cheese and tomato soup combo platter. That went down well. I always wanted my cooks to feel they were free to try new things.

Not everything worked...note to anyone still reading, cinnamon is not a good addition to clam chowder...but I would rather throw away a busload of food than have a paint-by-numbers kitchen.

Once, I wandered back during a tasting. The cooks and staff were all gorging themselves on enchiladas. I tried one, and the sauce spoke like a voice from heaven...perfectly spicy, smokey, chunky and with some ingredient or two you couldn't identify. I asked the cook, who made it? He pointed to the dishwasher. 'Manuel makes the sauce'. The enchiladas were on the menu the next week. Manuel got a raise. I forgot somehow to mention this to the owners.

The people you want to keep in this business are the people who like and are excited by food and service. Lose them, and you've lost your way.

@NotAmerican, Thanks!

Not so much a family meal memory, but memories of the restaurant "family" coddling me.

During my first fine dining serving/bussing experience, I was the youngest person in the house, and the most curious about food so one of the chefs would sneak me little bits and pieces of things he was cooking (most memorable--beef cheeks), and the bartender would let me (at age 17) do wine tastings with the rest of the staff.

One of the wines was delicious and tasted like grapefruit--anyone here knows what that is?

I used to work as a waitress at a small Japanese restaurant in southern California. My shifts were usually in the afternoon and the staff's family meal took place after lunch when the restaurant closed down for a few hours until it was time for dinner. We got that day's 'lunch special' (different for each weekday), cooked by either by the chef or the owner (the sushi chef). My favorite meal was the Chirashi Sushi special: a bowl of sushi rice topped with sashimi with a side of chawanmushi (savory egg custard). Yum!

Love fresh salads the most, but really love salads that include a bit of fresh fruit! From strawberries and raspberries to blueberries and apples. Yum!

Strawberrry Pie is my favorite . garrettsambo@aol.com

I love to make a lot of tomato basil soup this time of year.

Basil and tomatoes from our garden tossed with mozzarella balls, olive oil and coarse ground black pepper.

Peach pie