I have told this story before and it may be why I developed an interest in cooking and reinforced an interest in food and where it comes from

.
We lived with my mother's mother for a year when I was 3 and 4 years old. Two years after we had moved to another town and another state - she died. My grandmother died on Thanksgiving Day. My mother's sister and her family had come about 85 miles to have Thanksgiving dinner with us. Everything had just arrived on the table and we were all standing there looking at it when the phone rang and we learned the sad news.
We did not celebrate Thanksgiving for the next few years. When my mother was finally willing, I felt that I had to help her. I was about 9 when I started as a pumpkin pie baker

. I helped Mom with other things, I remember the canning of peaches and peach jam. Of course, as one of only two children, I had household chores which included days when I washed the dishes.
We lived on a farm with only cattle for most of this time and I became
soooo tired of beef. We even had the packing house cure and smoke sausage and bacon, all beef. Therefore, I was interested in
anything other than beef for dinner! Some of my choices were the result of my own activities - I hunted and fished. Yep. Brought home the bacon ... uh, the doves, quail, ducks, geese, trout, perch ...
Mom was not much of a stovetop cook. I don't think that she really wanted to be. For example, her mother told her never to learn to milk a cow so when Dad & Bro went on hunting trips, 8 year old Steve's digitS' were doing the milking. Anyway, Mom would overcook/burn every single vegetable that she would cook on the stove. Good Gravy, what was I supposed to do?!

Steve