my mom is a crappy cook

There, i said it. Growing up, I have never really enjoyed home cooked meals cooked by my mother. In my mind, I associate home cooked meals with bland, repetitive and boring, it was more of a requisite coming home to eat rather than something really enjoyable.

My grandmother, on the other hand was a brilliant cook - I remember her pungent, slightly sweet but definitely salty braised duck to this day. The smell of braised pork claypot congee stewing over a charcoal stove for hours still lingers in my mind. It could be that I was never allowed a huge serve of it as she made it to feed my then toddler brother that made it all the more precious but I can almost still taste the smokiness of the congee off the tip of my tongue.

My theory is that this cooking thing skips a generation. My grandma was a great cook so my mom never really had to learn to cook well. And because my mom is a crappy cook, I made myself master of the kitchen.