For as long as I can remember, my moms cooking has been one of the things that gave me the most joy growing up.

When I was in the second grade, I came home from my first day of school to be pleasantly surprised with a pan of gooey cheesecake swirl brownies waiting for me in the kitchen. The house was warm and even though it was still hot outside I didn't care. I could smell the sweet scent of the brownies from the bottom of stairs. While these were in fact just your average brownie mix in a box, she somehow made it taste like it was so much more. So I sat at the dining room table and ate my now favorite brownies, feeling so grateful but being too young to express it fully.

Her brownies were good (and still are), but that's not the kind of good food that I'm talking about.

My mom is the reason why I try to convince every person that I meet that Indian food is the BEST food, even thought it looks weird. From the time i was a kid, I grew up in a house that was always filled with aromas of different spices that made our kitchen smell like you just walked into a restaurant. And here's the best part: The food not only smelled amazing, but it tasted amazing too. I always knew it would be a good night when I got home from school and could smell my favorite food that she was cooking from the minute I walked through the front door.

She's the kind of cook that has never once measured how much ingredients she puts into her food, always a sprinkle of this and sprinkle of that and maybe some more of this, but I needed to give it a taste first to let her know for sure. She never questioned her choices, never unsure. Sometimes cautious, but never unwavering in her skill. Somehow, after a billion times of making the same thing over and over, it all tastes amazing. To this day, it still boggles my mind that she can make all this food by memory. Watching her cook is like magic, it's everything that is wonderful and

Even though my mom has cooked the same dishes over and over again over the course of my 20 years (with some hamburger helper thrown in there for my own enjoyment), I could never get tired of her calling me over to the kitchen and doing a taste test.

There's this tradition for my birthday that my mom cooks my favorite meal- all the works. While this is something that most families do with their kids, this is different. It feels special in a way that eating it on any other day doesn't compare.

When you have a mom that can cook you begin to realize that when your mom cooks food for you it's her love language towards you. It's her saying 'I know you love this, and i love you". There is so much joy in knowing that my mom has the skills to make a satisfying meal, because I don't think I could have survived my 20 years eating mac and cheese out of the box.

When you have a mom that can cook, you can rest asure that she knows what she's doing, which in return means you can almost always count on skipping out on the McD's for a day and going home to a warm plate of goodness.

Sometimes I would watch my mom cook just to watch and she would do it without thinking. There has never been a moment where she was confused with what she was doing, she just knew how to do it, it's like second nature. I would watch as she so smoothly mixed all the right spices together to create this work of art.

A lot of my happy childhood memories surrounded my mom cooking and my brother and I taking a plate and going down to our basement to watch a TV show or a movie. We would settle in the basement and then pray a prayer of thankfulness that our mom could cook amazing food.

My mom doesn't necessarily believe she's Americas next top chef, but in my eyes she is. So the next time your mom whips up something amazing, or maybe just something out of the box, tell her thank you. Show your appreciation and then to really show her you love her, do the dishes afterwards.