Of course, we have a black sheep in the family. My sister could put the Galloping Gourmet to shame. But sometimes she gets a little nutty about it. Once, during a weekend visit to my house, she suddenly jumped up with a horrified look in her eyes.

“Oh, no!” She exclaimed. “I forgot to feed the sourdough starter before I left!”

“Huh?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “The sourdough starter, it’s going to die. It needs yeast.” She sniffed sadly and looked at her watch. “Even if I left right now, I couldn’t get there in time to save it.” She dragged herself to the sofa and asked for a cold cloth for her forehead.

Personally, I think food that has to be pampered, fed and treated like a pet just isn’t worth the trouble.

Not that I haven’t tried to get a little fancy with my cooking. One year I decided to make deviled eggs to take to our family Christmas gathering. I got the recipe from my sister and followed the directions exactly—almost. I arranged the eggs neatly on the attractive plate I’d bought especially for the occasion. I even took a fork and made pretty little squiggles in the yolks. Just one more touch and…perfect!

It was only after several family members began to choke, gasp and gulp water directly from the kitchen tap, after tasting my fare, that I learned an important culinary lesson: paprika and red cayenne pepper are definitely NOT interchangeable.

Now, there are certain advantages to being a lousy cook. Never and I mean never, do I get elected to host any big get-togethers. Not after my lasagna fiasco anyway. I slaved over that recipe for hours. It was only during the kitchen clean up that I noticed the entire tub of ricotta cheese was still in the refrigerator, but the package of sour cream was missing. It was okay, though. Honestly, I don't think anyone noticed. But come to think of it, that might explain why I later found my brother off in a corner furtively scraping his tongue with a butter knife.

Since then I’ve learned not to get too adventurous when I’m cooking. I’m strictly an “out of the can/box and onto the table” kind of gal. My family doesn’t complain. Heck, my husband is in the military. He swears he’s been trained to eat bugs to survive if he has to. I believe him. The man is not picky. I once saw him devour an entire batch of sloppy joe mix, even after he had mistakenly dumped a package of frozen broccoli into it. He and I have similar cooking styles, it seems. If I remember correctly, my son and I made a fast food run that night. That happens a lot at my house.

My friend, Pam, always brags about making everything from “scratch.” Yeah, well as soon as they package it up, put it next to the bags of frozen French fries at the grocery store and make it microwavable, I’ll start cooking from “scratch” too. Until then, did somebody say McDonalds?