I'm a creative person who rarely cooks the same dish twice. For some reason I do take notes on my best experiments. Stews and casserols. Chop things up, put them in a pot, put the pot on the heat and then you are free to do other things while dinner is cooking.... I'm not sure my family had a cooking tradition. My meatballs. I once read a book and forgot the butter in the frying pan. The butter turned black and started to smoke viciously... To save things I poored the liquid into a plastic can, where it etched interesting patterns into the soft surfuce. (My only excuse is that I was about 12 years at the time.)