Be as specific or as non-specific as you like.

Why do I ask? Well food and drink preferences are very much a regional thing, though less so these days than in the past, mostly because of places like this where we get exposed to ideas from people that grew up with different food and drink than we did. I think it would be interested to know a bit about where people live, and where they're from.

I live in Springfield, Ohio, though I spent the first few years of my life in North Carolina (Greensboro). My mother taught me about cooking first, she was a chef for many years and taught me good technique. Being from the south the cuisine she most OFTEN cooked though was southern. Though she (in my opinion) has greatly improved on a lot of what's cooked in the south! Her collards are crisp and FULL of flavor, not overcooked and mushy. Just as an example.

When I was about 9-13 years of age, our next door neighbors were a family from India (Mumbai). Mrs Nezhad had cooked for one of the largest and best catering services in Mumbai when she still lived there. I spent those 4 years, every afternoon between school being over and until dinner time at my parent's house over there, and learned about Indian food while she was spending the time preparing dinner for HER family. So I'm also well trained in Indian cuisine, and still love it to this day.

In high school and after I've cooked at a few different restaurants, even being executive chef at one. Most were very good places, so I've got good training in all sorts of Western cuisine.

What about everyone else?

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Melbourne.

On account of my mother I grew up on Italian food and thus don't shy away from garlic.

Lived in Wyoming all my life. Started out in Lusk, WY, a town of 1500 people 140 miles north of Cheyenne. The claim to fame? It's the least populated county seat in the least populated county in the least populated state in the United States. Quite literally, cattle outnumber people in Niobrara County, WY, by roughly 80-100 to one, depending on what part of the market year it is.

Moved to Laramie, WY (pop. 33,000, give or take) for college (which is yet to be finished) and have been here since, sans a summer that I went back to try and help the failing former place of work in Lusk for one last season. The boss never got things turned around, and she eventually folded not long after I returned to Laramie.

When it comes to food, I'm a hack. I've learned by doing, and I think 'adequate cook' would be about the best I'd say about myself. In the hometown of Lusk, ingredients were non-existant if they weren't in the little 9-isle grocery store, since the nearest OTHER store was 55 miles away. In Laramie, it's better, but that's also because of the change in American supermarkes in the last decade.

Spent three years in a bar/restaurant here in Laramie, including a year and a half as manager, two years as the head bouncer, and a year and a half on the line and prep cooking. That's where the wealth of my experience lies, unless you want to count the dreadful six weeks of line cooking at Wingers (think a less classy version of Applebee's) or the little bit of prep I would do in the old joint in Lusk.

I've said a mouthful.

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Grew up on the MS Gulf Coast to a family where a home cooked meal was on the table every single night. The only time we ever ate out was when my Mom had a craving for Pizza Hut which was once every two months. Anyway, the focus of our meals most of the time was seafood, seafood, seafood. And the freshest seafood imaginable. Stopping by the shrimp boats on the way home to pick up 3 lbs of shrimp caught five hours earlier at a next to nothing price. But now I live in DFW and I hate life. There are some great restaurants here but they don't have what I'm craving. Even to this day my friends make a point to go to my house to eat whatever my Mom cooks when I go home. So in conclusion, I hate DFW and I need to get back to the Coast.

I'm living in Calgary, though I've lived throughout most of Canada. I have a grounding in western cuisine and have toyed with most everything else. One Grandmother is a big believer in using fresh ingredients, gardening, and enjoys cooking a mixture of North American and English food; while the other Grandmother cooks in the traditional Hungarian style with three course meals from scratch each day. I was blessed with leftovers for quite a few years, which led me to learn how to duplicate many of these dishes. I've eaten in a wide variety of restaurants and had quite a few chef friends over the years. It's almost impossible not to pick things up along the way.

I consider cooking to be an enjoyable activity and never mind experimenting with things. It has been a mixture of necessity and hobby for most of my life; however, soon I'll be taking a handful of cooking classes. I'm looking forward to these classes and will hopefully taking them while in Melbourne this February.

I consider cooking to be separate from baking; that being said, I've worked as a professional baker and quite enjoyed it.

I'm currently fascinated by Ethiopian food, but I'm a bit too busy to start in on it at the moment.

Absolutely. Baking is almost an exact science that you can't stray from. What's weird is my wife can't cook for shit but she can bake her ass off and I'm the exact opposite. I make a mean carrot cake but other than that I hate baking.

sydney, australia. specifically, the inner west area.

i dont really remember when i started cooking

Since when does Ethiopia have food?

Middlemount, Australia. (Bowen coal basin, QLD)

I grew up here and now work here. the town is about 4,000 people big but less than half actualy live here. Most are tradesmen contracted to the mines for a year or so.

I have a Scottish father and a mixed mother but dad was always really big on cooking. Lot's of traditional Scottish and English food as well as a bit of Indian he picked up here and there. I did most of my senior schooling at a bording school where I dispised the food. Didn't realise the value of fresh ingredients and how well I was eating until I left home.

Mum was a vegetarian until she married dad so she made a lot of vege stacks and the like.

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UK, but spent most of my adult life abroad in Germany. We still live and speak German at home (even thinking in English-which is a T-Shirt language- gives me a headache).

Learnt to cook at and over my mother's knee!

Was sorta kinda trained in the classical style and worked some hotels as a Chef De Plonge/Tournant/Communard/prep chef

But i figured out early on that on that I was never going to be a great chef, good yes-great NO because my palate sucks (Damn you 60 hand rolled ciggys a day!).

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