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I love the site! I'm not a great cook - I wonder how other people who read the site think of themselves in the kitchen - are y'all good cooks, professional cooks, just learning?

I'm an artist/home cook who couldn't afford chef school. I'm teaching myself. Learning as I go. Cooking at homes as a creative outlet as well as being budget concious. For the love of entertaining too.

Love the site as well. Haven't cooked regularly since my student days (the cooking class offered in college was BEST class I have ever taken during undergrad or grad). Now I do carry-out and live vicariously, but will occasionally spend a wknd experimenting in the kitchen.

I am absolutely a home cook. I love authentic, sustainable, slow food. Nothing shiny. My mentors are Saveur magazine, Nigella, Deborah Madison, Mario Batali and Tina Nordstrom.

I consider myself a learning cook. I only started cooking daily a few years ago. Mark Bittman has been a big inspiration for me. I love his book "How to cook everything." He makes you feel like everyone can be a good home cook. The recipes from his book are easy and tasty. I have a lot of the basic cookbooks like,"America's Test Kitchen" and "Betty Crocker". Also, I live in Ithaca, and so around here "The Moosewood Cookbook" is almost mandatory.