Nina Young-Bennet wrote:

"Not all of the meals were successes, though. There was the time that, as a teenager, I started ordering magazine subscriptions like "Cuisine" and "Food and Wine." By then, I thought I wanted to cook gourmet dishes."
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My response:

That is truly great that you were able to cook an entire Th-Gvg dinner all by yourself at age 12! Your mom must have been proud --- and happy that there was another cook in the house besides herself (tee-hee).

Funny you should mention a spaghetti dinner disaster. Our washer and dryer were perpendicular to the stove in our kitchen. There was a half-cup of liquid on the counter next to the pot of spaghetti I had just cooked. I felt it needed more liquid so I dumped it in. It turned out to be bleach! Fortunately, everyone else had already fixed their plate and were grubbing down. I had to fix myself a sandwich that night (boo-hoo).

Like you, by the time I was in my late teens I wanted to graduate to more sophisticated meals. So I cooked almost every night from an old Betty Crocker cookbook I found on our bookshelf. Ice cream pie; shrimp creole; chicken cacciatore. No disasters with any of the meals, but boy did I pack on the pounds! My mom worked nights at the post office when I turned 16. I weighed about 150 pounds. By the time I turned 19 I was 40 pounds heavier. So much for gourmet cooking!

Georgia Walker-Adams