I learned to cook from necessity but my mother taught me the basics. My wife and I raise European Belgian Draft horses, along with some cows and goats and chickens. We use our horses to pull a wagon on trail rides and to do field work, plowing, etc.. We enjoy using our own fresh meat, milk, cheese and vegetables in our cooking. I love to cook over a campfire. I have been doing this since I was in Boy Scouts. I have an extensive collection cast iron cookware and really enjoy cooking in dutch ovens. Due to time and schedule constraints, the crock pot is our usual everyday cooking method. My Grandmother and Mother both had cooking jobs, among others, throughout their lives. My Mother had a catering business, later in life, and my sisters and I were called in to help, when needed. There wasn't a special cuisine or type of food we cooked. We enjoyed trying new recipes, new foods and experimenting with ingredients. Cooking a dinner menu for 12 riders consisting of roast beef with Jack Daniel's and coffee gravy, roasted potatoes and onions, corn pudding, Gringo beans, sourdough biscuits and pineapple-upside-down cake. This menu wasn't that remarkable but it was done in cast iron on a cold, windy, rainy afternoon and all came out "done jes' right". Cold and wind can affect cook times dramatically in cast iron cooking but I "guessed" right. On a trail ride, a horse spooked, broke loose and galloped through my "kitchen" sending people, a cast iron pot, dutch ovens and our dinner flying. Of the 20 or so trail riders I was feeding, none went hungry but the final dinner was far from what had been "on the menu"