You Know You're a "Home Cooking Chowhound" when...

[Funwithfood]

You Know You're a "Home Cooking Chowhound" when...

You bring a big bunch of fragrant, fresh-cut Genovese basil in from the garden and your four year-old says "Mmmm...smells like ice cream!". (Had recently made Orange-Basil and Lime-Basil sorbets :)

[AmandaEd]

Every time you go to open the freezer, little baggies full of gems like kaffir lime or curry leaves, fresh chilis, reduced stocks, tbsps of sauces and pastes, demiglaces (you get the picture) rain down on you!

[mamaciita]

My friend (while helping me prepare dinner) said, "You're going to save THAT?"

[EclecticEater]

You wipe the edge of a gravy spattered plate to make it look pristine.

[micki]

It's 90 degrees and humid and you just have to put the oven on to braise the osso buco you MUST HAVE.

[kitchensalli]

You keep a cooler box in the trunk of your car - always - just in case you pick up some ingredients along the way.

[Scrapironchef]

You're in line at your local grocery and someone ask the checker if they have sun-dried tomatoes, he looks at you and says "Do we?"

You know they have three different kinds, the aisle and shelf locations of each but ask the person what they are going to use them for before telling them which one to get...

[HillJ]

you go in for a dress and you come out with another frying pan!

[lemonfaire]

...you find yourself spending more time lusting after kitchen applicances than shoes.

[Das Ubergeek]

That's not normal??

Uh-oh.

[MaggieB]

...you quit cooking food for your roommates because you have to share the leftovers and, when they decide to reciprocate the favor, it's never as good and you don't even want the leftovers!

...your dad, who lives 1,800 miles across the country (in Arizona), requests your homemade guacamole every time you come home to visit.

...the "sauce aisle" in grocery stores isn't fun to gawk at anymore because you know you can make most of those sauces/marinades better at home.

...you own kitchen tools such as an avocado masher, a potsticker sealer and a microplane (and your roommate had to ask you what they all were and do).

...your friends want to know what you put in the "crack cheese" dip you threw together for the party.

...you're invited to a party with a food theme and you immediately begin planning what to bring... three months in advance.

[browniebaker]

. . . you're going away for three months and you can't live without your own home-baked bread, so you check a canister of yeast in your luggage, and the luggage arrives with the canister obviously having been opened and improperly closed by airport security.

. . . your mom tells you she gains weight every time you come home to visit because you bake so many goodies in her kitchen.

. . . you really chafe at the public schools' policy that the foods brought in for children's snacks and parties must be store-bought, labeled as to ingredients, and sealed.

. . . you've learned never to order any food in a restaurant or bakery for which you have perfected your own recipe because the restaurant's or bakery's inevitably disappoints.

. . . your children rate your pizza higher than the high-profile chains'.

. . . your children know and love the smell of a pizza stone pre-heating in the oven.

. . . the shower stall in the usually unused, guest bathroom is filled with baking pans, proofing boxes, and Tupperware deviled-egg containers for which there is no room in the kitchen cabinets.

[Malice]

Everytime I meet one of my working colleagues, we are always about cooking and how to change recipes... All our conversation starts like "on sunday I was cooking a new recipe in the newspaper (or wherever) and ..." we can be talking for hours...

[free sample addict aka Tracy L]

Your puppy is put on restricted diet and you analyze the dog food cans to see if you can make something similar. Or you dehydrate sweet potato slices to make as treats because she can't have milk bones anymore.

[PrincessBakesALot]

OR, your dog is on a restricted diet and you boil hamburger and rice and his rice choices are arborio, carnaroli or basmati (he got the basmati)

[Katie Nell]

When a restaurant owner suspects that you are a food critic (or something) because the first time he walked by, you were taking pictures of your appetizer, the second time he walked by, you were writing down the names of the wines you liked, and the third time he walked by, you asked him, out of curiosity only, why all the desserts are dairy-free! Nope... not a food critic, just a geek!

Edited to add: Oops! I meant this one for the "You know you're a Chowhound when..."! Oh well!

[TexasToast]

No self respecting food critic would take pictures or notes at the table. And the photog is sent only AFTER the review's done (but before it goes to print of course).

TT

[Katie Nell]

Right, I didn't say I acted like one, but he seemed to be suspicious for one reason or another.

[Hoosierland]

...when your niece buys the whole family aprons with WWHD stiched on them...and you are H

...when you casually mention to your brother (while cooking dinner at his house) that "this would be a lot easier with another stove" and the next week he is converting the walk in pantry into a second kitchen

...when you haven't been to a major chain grocery store in months...and you don't miss it

[MMRuth]

When your husband is making risotto and you can hear from the other room that he has the heat up too high (and this is then confirmed when you mention this).

[lunchbox]

I can't believe no one else said these-
You are willing to drive an hour to shop at a particular grocery store.

Any meal with three or more courses means visiting at least 3 different markets.

When you check out a new neghborhood, you window-shop all the markets, even if you don't buy anything... today.

And, just for the record, I agree with what all the rest of you said.

[kmr]

When every big family gathering (Christmas Dinner, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc) or large dinner party with friends starts off with the statement "This is a new recipe I've been wanting to try..."

[TexasToast]

When you feel like making a simple Indian curry, but all you have is Walnut Oil, two kinds of Sesame Oil, three kinds of Olive Oil, Truffle Oil, but NO FREAKING Corn or Vegetable Oil!

TT

[JMF]

When you take over the family cooking at age 12 so you can eat a tasty and balanced diet.

When you are on a first name basis with the city tree pruners and they call your cell phone when they cut down a fruitwood tree so you can pick up some wood for BBQ, and ask when, so they can come over to eat the 'cue.

When complete strangers at a food event take photos of stuff you made and post it online.

When you are asked not to bring salsa to an event because last time folks only ate your salsa and none of the four other ones.

When you go to a potluck event and you are surrounded by a half dozen 40-50 year old women asking you for the recipes, and you are a 16 year old boy.

When you drop 5 lbs in one day due to water loss from spending six hours cooking in a hot kitchen.

When you start to cook dinner before you have breakfast. Heck, when you start to cook tomorrows dinner before you have breakfast.

When you pantry is so full of new and interesting condiments, spices, canned goods, etc. that you now store the excess in your bedroom closet, on office shelves, and in your clothes drawers.

When you cut off the tip of your finger while chopping ginger to make syrup because your five year old nephew ran into you and when you get back from the hospital having your finger sewn back on you finish the batch of ginger syrup using one hand.

When you go camping for a week with three friends and you pack more cooking gear than everything else combines.

[Alice Q]

Your friends disparagingly and spitefully refer to you as "Martha Friggin' Stewart Over Here"...

Or you start a food blog, name it after yourself and call yourself a foodie!

http://www.aliceqfoodie.blogspot.com

[AmandaEd]

When you invite friends for dinner and they make menu requests! (Only forgivable and somewhat charming if you go way back though)

When you bring your magazines/cookbooks/hand-drawn anatomical diagrams to your food purveyors/butchers to ensure that the item or cut you want for your recipe is just right.

When the first friend you make on rural vacation - and invite to dinner - is the organic farmer down the road.

When the art in your dining room is made up of the menus from remarkable meals you have had around the world (2 from NYC's USC!)

[JasmineG]

When the best compliment you got all week is from one of the vendors at your local farmer's market calling you a bacon connoisseur.

[cooknKate]

Everyone who invites you for dinner says "Of course, it won't be as good as what YOU make!"

Or worse yet, they don't invite you at all because they somehow think they have to make something wonderful in order for you to eat with them.

[JMF]

I can totally relate to those two commments.

[steinpilz]

You buy a chicken (or pork tenderloin or skirt steak, etc), cut it into quarters, and cook it four ways in one evening.

[bella_sarda]

...when you force your co-workers to taste raw purslane (that you just bought at the farmer's market but wish you had grown at home) right off the stem

...when you save the heads and bones of the fresh Portuguese sardines you cooked for dinner to make fish stock

...when you give a friend a bag of Sardinian pasta (only available in Sardinia, but that only cost 1 euro) for his birthday, and he loves you for it

[toodie jane]

....when you cruise the older parts of a strange city with your older brother looking for interesting neighborhood markets because you are waaay too early to go to the airport to catch your flight home.

....when you both do a 180 on the same huge Mexican supermercado and you yell at him "Turn in here!!"

....when you try to figure out how to get cheese and fresh chorizo into your luggage or carry-on. "Which clothes don't I really wear all that much anyway?!"

....when you pull out fresh torillas and flan in the airport waiting area for a quick snack before heading through security.

....when you get home and bring out your hoard of New Mexican pinos bought from a guy in a pickup at the side of the road at 7500 ft, $20 a pound, and realize they're going to be the benchmark for the rest of your life.

....when your'e reminiscing with your brothers about your mom who just passed away, and everybody's best stories revolve around the food she prepared and HOW she loved her chow!

[mabziegurl]

your bf says you make the best chicken picatta he's ever tasted (its his favorite food) and you've never even tasted chicken picatta, you just studied 20 recipes or so and combined them all together.

[jillp]

You know you and your spouse are both Home Cooking Chowhounds when the first thing you ask each other in the morning is not: "How did you sleep?" but: "What do you want for dinner?"

And you know your spouse is even more of a H-C 'Hounder than you are when you tell him your sister had to kill a rattlesnake and he wants to know if she saved the meat (not to mention the skin)!

[Dee S]

What you all said!

You join a breakfast club at work and everyone wants you to cook every week (sausage gravy, stratas etc) because they're sick of bagels and donuts. Oh and you commute over an hour to work....but still lug those things into the office.

You're asked to make cheesecake for two different restaurants (brought some to the owners for various reasons).

You're asked to make salsa for a restaurant (same as above).

You say thank you to co-workers by sending cookies. And are constantly reminded that you sent cookies before, when are more coming?

When a person from Mexico covets your red mole and red posole.

Your butcher prominently displays a photograph of ribs you cooked and calls them "his grandchildren".

[S_K]

Dee, I want to be your friend. My mouth is watering.

[leeds]

When you wake up very early in the morning with thoughts of what you could be cooking up in the kitchen and end up just getting up and cooking 'cause it's like you're already doing it anyway!
When you limit how many times you try new restaurants because you are often disappointed: you and/or your SO can make most things they can make, but much better!

[S_K]

When you wake up thinking about what you'll cook that day and go to bed dreaming of what you could eat tomorrow.

You have a notebook of your own recipes, and modified recipes and in the back of the notebook, you have a huge list of ideas and possible things to make. (I thought this was normal, but apparently it isn't.) Mine has a pen stuck in the spine and I travel with it if I'm going away for more than a day. Whenever I don't, I regret it later.

Your friends always call you to discuss recipes and food, even ones you haven't talked to for years, but everyone in your house just thinks you're a bit weird.

(Also, what Katie Nell said.)

[Velma]

...your work nick name is "Frickin Betty Crocker."

[tbear]

when you cook down six logs of aged apple tree wood to grill cheeseburgers.

[pilotgirl210]

...your mouth gapes open when, at age 5, your son, when asked by a neighbor what his favorite foods are, answers nonchalantly: *Duckling a l'orange and baked brie.*

[ZoeZ]

Youngest ChowPup was seven and was asked by the neighbor what her favorite food was and she said "Snails - and the more garlic butter, the better".

[pilotgirl210]

Our kids would get along great!! I love escargot and am always teased by the Husband Unit about having all the special apparatus -- shells, shell plates, spring-loaded tongs and tiny forks -- with which to eat them. I have a lovely, large gourmet kitchen but every single drawer and cabinet is loaded to the gills with kitchen gadgets, pots, pans and other sundry items. Hubby says he is going in there one day while I'm off on a trip and he's going to clean house! I tell him when our son gets married, I'm giving all my extra equipment to his bride. It remains to be seen who can hold out the longest.....tee hee.

[Das Ubergeek]

It takes you three hours to shop for $20 worth of produce at the farmers' market because you're busy preaching the gospel of ong choy or heirloom tomatoes and handing out recipes like a politician with flyers.

You've had food that you've cooked be featured at a farmer's booth -- "see what you can do with my produce".

You know more about the people you buy your food from (family, history, etc.) than you do about your co-workers.

No matter whose house you go to, even if you've never met them, you end up in the kitchen, happily helping with the food.

[PseudoNerd]

Where do you SHOP??? Man, I want to be given recipes by people on the street!

Mine would be: you stand around the aisle of a store looking at two different products for a while; the owner/employee comes up to you and asks whether you need help and offers some info; you turn around and tell him/her more about the product than he initially offers, which recipes you plan on using them in, and then engage him/her in a conversation about various buying policies (what the store has to go through to get said products and what you've done to find a place that even has them) involved with the product, what foods s/he'd prepare with products; and STILL end up buying both for their different properties.

[Das Ubergeek]

Studio City Farmers' Market.

[JMF]

I hang out early saturday mornings at one organic farmers stand at the local market to chat with him since he used to be a client and we have become good friends. It has gotten to the point that when people ask him how to prepare some item he just points to me and says. I have no clue, ask him. Regular customers come up to me there, specifically to ask me for recipes for dinner that night, based on the bags of produce and meat they just bought.

[Scrapironchef]

In the high tech version, I've figured out how to beam recipes from my pda to any bluetooth phone. It's so much easier to carry around a 1000 recipes on a memory card. Think of it as an ipod for hounds.

[galleygirl]

Strangers come up to you in the grocery store and ask what's in Pasta Puttancesca..How did they KNOW?????

[mclaugh]

Um ... maybe it was something you were wearing? ;-)

[spigot]

bwah!

[mimolette]

When you go through several backpacks a year from the weight of the grocery.

Your friend get disappointed when you invite them to a good restaurant.

When your 100 lb friend who hates chicken skin and only eat white meat finishes 1/2 chicken all by herself, including the skin, and then her other friends you don't even know call you up asking for the recipe.

When your friend asks you to cook for her in laws.

When your Italian friends keep asking you to make pasta for dinner.

When your cousin who was too full to have dinner end up stealing food right off your plate after finishing her own.

But most of all, when you get approval from your mom and actually take you seriously in the kitchen.

[Carb Lover]

For a New Year's email you send to family and friends, you include lots of photos of "The Best Of" dishes that you cooked during 2005...

Your phone is like a Food 911 hotline...

You can't wait for school to start so you can start baking goodies for husband's colleagues again...

Whenever you make a good home-cooked meal, you wonder why you even bother eating out...

[MMRuth]

You are leaving for a ten day vacation during which you will be "the cook" (that in itself probably qualifies!) - you wake up at 6 am the morning of the departure (knife already packed, wine - some selection based on CH recs - shipped and delivered) to find out about the terrorist round up in the UK and the new restrictions on carryon items, realizing that you will have to leave for the airport much earlier than planned. You quickly repack, and then decide to continue photocopying recipes to take with you rather than dry your (long) hair for the 14 hour trip.

And when you get there, you learn that they eat bear, and you want a recipe.

[Alexandra Eisler]

When your chowpup complains that whole wheat bread from the bakery (in this case Acme) just doesn't taste as good as home made.

[birddog]

When your mother-in-law buys you a pizza stone, but it's not to take home. It stays there, you know, for away games. As in, "Honey, Mom wants to know if we can come over for dinner on Sunday... and she wants to know if you'll make your pizza!" It's really much easier when everyone has their own stone, isn't it? And hey, when they put out the cheese and and the olives and the wine, everybody's happy!

[galleygirl]

I thought I was the only one...i keep a peel at my Mom's, and BF's, as well...

[JMF]

LOL, my mother set aside a drawer and cabinet for all my cooking gear, tools, etc. I have left at her home. Also my mother doesn't cook, but she bought a fancy new range for me to use when I visit.

[JasmineG]

I bought my mom a really good knife for Christmas just so I wouldn't have to bring my knives over when I came over to cook.

[birddog]

i've also been meaning t to buy two sets of spring-loaded tongs, to leave in both sets of parent kitchens. i can't really cook without them, and I'm amazed that they don't have their own -- they're both good cooks!

Does anyone else travel with a sharpening steel? mom's knife (from a couple Christmases ago) needs a little love every once in a while.

[Scrapironchef]

Not a steel, but I have a little keychain sized ceramic sharpener I've been known to use surrepticously use on other peoples knives...

[JudiAU]

Where do you buy something like that. My mom has the same knives as I do purchased at the same time and hers make me cry.

[JasmineG]

I bought my mom spring loaded tongs too!

[amandine]

when your friends affectionately refer to you as "Martha"

[denverdoni]

When you tell your husband what to order so you can "analyze" that sauce one more time to be sure you have the recipe figured out.

When your 5 year old grandson refuses the string cheese sticks for snack time and insists that you show him where you keep the ($18/lb parmesan reggiano) "good cheese."

[ZoeZ]

I tried to give Zoe (Devil Chow's consort) a bite of string cheese which she refused. Mme. ZoeZ said to me, Zoe doesn't like string cheese, she likes the $11.95 lb Spanish sheep cheese

[free sample addict aka Tracy L]

When you pop for a pricey meal at a steakhouse and DH says " the steak was good but not as good as the one you made me for my birthday LAST year."

Mistakenly calling housing insulation "stuffing".

[Rubee]

When you immediately go out and buy ingredients to make a dish a Hound just posted a picture of.

When you use any excuse to do a themed dinner party just so you can base a menu on a new ethnic cuisine you've only dabbled in.

When your friends shake their heads at the amount of food you've prepared (even though you've already cut down the menu three times).

When your cookbook 'problem' accelerates because a Hound mentions another one on the Home Cooking board.

[Atahualpa]

Other than the cookbooks (which I just don't really have that many of) I think you've been to my parties. Or, perhaps, that I'd like to go to yours.

I had a friend go to SE Asia for 6 months. I got 3 lovely themed dinner parties out of that! Now, I'm teaching him how to cook the food he misses.

[JK Grence the Cosmic Jester]

When the best compliment someone gave you was the time at a dinner party when they picked up a bowl and literally licked it clean.

[curiousbaker]

All of the above, plus:
When you leave a restaurant, your significant other turns to you and says, "So what could you have made with the money we spent on that?"

[Katie Nell]

Or when you leave a restaurant and say, "We could have made *that*!"

[Das Ubergeek]

You mean other people don't do that as a matter of course?

uh-oh.

[Davwud]

I know my wife always tells me I could. Or I get tips from the staff on hand.

DT

[JMF]

Last week I asked a friend to join me for dinner at a new and very authentic sichuan restaurant. He told me he couldn't make it because of work, but asked me if he could come over to dinner the following night. I asked why and he said that he knew I would be trying to recreate all the best dishes from the night before.

[Atahualpa]

Or you're dragged to dinner by friends, you feel the food is overpriced and you invite them over to prove how easy it is to make the same dishes so much cheaper and not have to deal with the snotty service.

Ok, this only happened once (with a menu from Fred's Not Here in Toronto). My friends loved the place and I thought it over priced and excessively pretentious. I have, unfortunately, ruined it for them and they haven't been back (or secertly are hiding the fact from me).

[ZoeZ]

We leave restaurants and say, "We could have made it better than that" - happens all too often.

[k_d]

OR... You and your spouse refuse to visit a restaurant because we already believe I can cook anything on the menu better than they!

[Atahualpa]

Oh, I just can't go out for Indian anymore since I got good at it! And most French is out of the question too. I only go out for the incredible (generally expensive), the time consuming (I will go have Biryani for example), or the ethnic I haven't tackled yet (which keeps shrinking).

[Scrapironchef]

Or you go back to keep ordering the one thing you haven't quite figured out.

You ask for a seat nearest the kitchen to watch their technique.

[Elizzie]

You remember the menu of dinner parties ten years ago AND you figure out who was in attendance based on that menu.

[Davwud]

You prattle on endlessly about the merits of frying your tomato paste.

You keep jars of duck, pulled pork and bacon grease in your fridge.

Your freezer has no room left in it because it's full of bags of chicken/beef/shrimp/duck/etc. bones to make stock with.

Your fridge/freezer contains no actual food. Just ingredients.

You eagerly give 100% more effort for 10% more reward.

DT

[Dee S]

Your co-workers BRING you their turkey bones!

A co-worker deboned a turkey for Thanksgiving and brought the carcass in to work for me!

[Will Owen]

I scandalized my wife by asking our host if I could have the turkey carcass; he was going to use it himself, as it turned out. On another occasion I ran across the kitchen and intercepted another carcass as it was headed for the garbage can. She was not upset about that.

[jona2325]

LOL!

[JMF]

You described my fridge and freezer quite well, except my freezer also has double portion ziplocks and tupperware of several batches of food because I always cook for 8, but usually eat alone or have only 1-2 people over. I also have 6-8 types of hard to find or regional sausages and scrapple blocks frozen but ready for instant use and bags of veggie scraps for making broth.

A friend looked in my packed fridge the other day and said "don't you have any food in here?"

[ZoeZ]

You've been looking in my freezer!!!

[lunchbox]

Get out of my freezer! After 2 years of living solo, I have a roommate who doesn't understand my cartons of bones/scraps/frozen fats at all. She reaps the benefits, but is creeeped out by the dead animal storage.

[BeeZee]

You are happier with the gift of truffle oil you received at the holiday gift exchange than anything else.

[Melanie]

I wish you had worked at my office! A couple of years ago, I reluctantly participated in a 'gift exchange.' Everyone got such tacky gift (Imo). I was so proud at how mine would blow everyone out of the water. Low and behold, someone opened MY gift, the gift of truffle oil...everyone looked around, with a look of confusion and disgust saying 'Who the hell brought THIS?' So, to answer another poster's question: No, not everyone is like us.

[leeds]

Your co-workers immediately assume it was you who brought in the homemade goodies being gladly consumed in the office kitchen (sometimes it is & sometimes it's not).

[Pei]

Your ex-co-workers e-mail you telling you they miss those homemade goodies (because no one else brings them).

When a compliment is "What did you put in here? CRACK?" following by more shovelling of food into mouth.

When you trade in perfectly nice non food related gifts because you know the store where the gifts were purchased has those plates you've been coveting.

When your weekly dinner guests know better than to bring presents. Instead, they call and offer to drop in a market for whatever last minute items you realize you're missing (or a sanity boosting cook's treat of a perfect storebought cupcake).

[j2brady]

You're nick names include meatsy and chunky monkey (after Ben and Jerry's not any physical state)

As a result of over exposure you're friends have all developed the unique ability to blank out with an 'I'm listening but not really listening' stare the instant you start on one of your crazy food rants that usually leaves you frothing at the mouth and wildly eyeing the immediate area looking for the next fix of something delicious.

You visit your parents just (OK well not just) to use their much larger and swanky kitchen.

Jenna

[Will Owen]

You celebrate having found a store that carries White Lily self-rising flour by making a big batch of biscuits for breakfast, even though it's over 80o by 8:00 am and you're in the middle of the South Beach Diet, Phase 1.

[chocolate chick]

You realize after 3 "phase 1" attempts on the South Beach Diet it is against your religion and therefore you must reincorporate "good and bad carbs". To then celebrate your new "religion", you make homemade mallowmars.

[Das Ubergeek]

It's like you're reading my mind...!

[Candy]

There ae some of us you will never convert. We indulge in the occasional high carb treat but it is not our way of life and many of us are healthier for it. I won't impose what is healthy and comfortable and makes my clothes fit better, my cholesterol and blood pressure better if you will not inflict your choices on mine.

[MollyGee]

You haven't spoken with your sister in days becaue of the argument you had about the relative merits of The Dipping Method vs. Sifting.

[JudiAU]

I hope you were on the side of Right and Justice! (sifting) =)

[MollyGee]

Of course! And let me say, her cakes are lovely but a little dense. (Don't tell her I told you!)

[Das Ubergeek]

...but I bet she makes better brownies than you do!

[MollyGee]

We make different brownies. Hers are definitely of the dense, fudgy variety and mine are very light and nearly melt in the mouth. I guess it depends on what you consider a good brownie (boy, now *that's* another argument we've had repeatedly!).

[Procrastibaker]

I like the sifting, but I have to say a turning point with me was getting a kitchen scale... no more dipping...