Is it possible to cook like your grandmother? Will you ever be able to master that favorite meal your mom cooks for you? Are you going to be part of the traditions that pass recipes on?

One of my greatest ambitions is to be as good a cook as my mother - to own the kitchen, to have people asking for that one meal over and over again. Yet one of my greatest fears is that I will never master the kitchen the way she has.

How hard can a lasagna be? Is it really that difficult to make a gravy? Am I savvy enough to make a good cheesecake?

The answers: very, yes, and probably not.

I’m not saying that I’m a bad cook. I get by just fine. The only time I starve is when I’m lazy; not because I’ve burned dinner. But my food never tastes as amazing as my mom’s no matter how hard I try and how closely I follow a recipe!

I am convinced that my mother forgets to tell me something when she passes me her recipes. Maybe I need to be reminded to include a dash of love in everything I make? Maybe it’s that she has tweaked the recipes and only keeps those recorded in her memory? Maybe it’s because at this point she barely follows recipes and just makes it up as she goes?

I wanted to learn how to make cheesecake recently and the recipe that was handed to me was literally a list of ingredients. Thankfully, I was able to observe the making of a couple of cheesecakes before it was my turn. But I’m still convinced mine did not taste as good as her’s. Otherwise, I would have just had a bowl full of ingredients of random amounts.

Sometimes my mom will literally put all of the ingredients for a meal in front of me and say ‘go ahead’ but I will always be convinced that it’s just not the same.

Could it be that there’s just nothing quite like mom’s home cooking? Let’s stick with that.