I learned to cook out of necessity and decided that if I had to do it everyday for a family of 6 I might as well do it right and like it. I got started by persuading an Italian-American friend, who was a great cook, to give lessons to small groups of people. That got me hooked for life! I definitely like everything Italian, although I cook other things too. My grandmother, of French origin, was a fabulous cook but I never tried learning from her because I had no need to. My mother, on the other hand, hated to cook and never went into the kitchen. As I said before, when I had to face cooking for a husband and four kids, I started cooking very simple food and as time went by I got better and better and discovered that I really loved to cook. My only triumphs in the kitchen are when the family comes to lunch on Sundays and raves about everything I've cooked and some of them have seconds and a couple of them may even have thirds. My one and only tragedy occured when my husband invited to dinner the president of an American company who was visiting Caracas. I was just a beginner so I decided to play safe and bought at the butcher store a stuffed chicken which I was instructed to just put in the oven for about an hour. When I was going to serve our guest he asked me to put lots of gravy on his chicken, BUT, I had made no gravy! I not only hadn't thought to make gravy but I didn't have the faintest idea how to make it, although I could have gotten a recipe out of one of my books. From then on I made sure I always had gravy on the table whenever I cooked chicken or meat.