Every where I look right now I see ads for Father's Day gifts and when I turn on the Food Network I am see grilling shows and I am reminded about grilling in my own family.

My father came from an era where men did not do much cooking. He did some grilling but he really did not like food grilled. His comment was he did not like to eat outside or cook outside since flies spent as much time on your food as you did cooking it. Our family did have lots of picnics but all of the foods was cooked in the house before going to the park.  

He did cook his lunch most days since my mother was at work. His favorite was knockwurst since he would order it if he even went out to a restaurant for lunch too. But he made this weird tuna salad that was a mix of ketchup, mustard and a can of tuna. He ate it often. He would buy these cans of herring that had the same type of sauce that I am sure he was trying to emulate with his mixture of ketchup and mustard.

One of my favorite meals that he made was his scrambled eggs with left over potatoes all fried together. It was never over cooked and the potatoes always were crispy.  That is it, it was a very limited menu of foods he would create and eat. But I think that was big improvement over his father or my grandfather. I do not think that they ever cooked a meal and my grandmother cooked three meals a day since they never went out to eat. There has been some questions about her cooking from my sister and my cousins but she ran a bed and breakfast in the old country so maybe her cooking skills were old world too.

I live in a home where my partner cooks most nights a full-blown dinner. He has told me he is a better cook than I am. I am not going to argue about that, if he wants to do the cooking, I will let him. I started cooking dinner when I was in the fifth grade every night until I moved out of my parent’s house.

What I love is how the men of the family have changed over the generations. Yet there a lot of men in my family that have been chefs and of course, bakers. But working in a kitchen is one thing but cooking the house is another. But I digress, I gave my father a grill for a father’s day present many years a go that he really did use when pushed.

The men change but fathers really don’t get the same quality of gifts for their day. Making breakfast in bed is not really that great a way to start the day for dad as it is for Mom But it is the a great way to start the day anyway. So for all those fathers’ that cook may they get the gift to enhance their passion in the kitchen.