I was raised on fast-food, delivery pizza, and Lucky Charms. The cereal nights were a default to ordering food, which my mom brazenly referred to as "Do Your Own Thing Night." As soon as she started letting me sign her name on the pizza check, it was Do-My-Own-Pizza-Night every night. I felt no remorse.

My stepmom is a fantastic cook. She gathers up recipes like notes in the high school hallway. She and her friends had this secret club, it seemed, where they would swap and share and doll up the store-bought ingredients. The first time we had dinner in her condo she made a very fine angel hair spaghetti with rich chunks of real tomato and Italian bread that her stepkids still today ascribe her name to. I'd never seen fresh garlic peeled and cracked and chopped. I'd never tasted paprika.

In my adult life I decided I would learn all of her secrets. I wanted to be really fantastic cook ?the mom all the kids wanted. Mike, my soon-to-be husband, had that mom, and his own cooking reflects it. Cooking him dinner never fails to make me nervous.

The sausage stuffed mushrooms ruined everything. I browned this really smoky applewood sausage, and folded just the right amount of breadcrumbs in. I was careful to not add too much parmesan, and I was delicate with the fresh basil. Then the salt. What's this say? A pound of salt? That doesn't seem right. But if the recipe says salt?

We didn't have a kitchen table yet so we laid a carpet-picnic out on the living room floor. Our place settings mirrored each other and we started with a glass of smooth red wine. Then the mushrooms. The poor guy actually ate three before I tried a taste ?they were mini salt-licks! He asked what was in them, and was quick to figure out my flaw. The pound of salt was referring to the shaker. All they needed was a pinch.

It's stupid, but it stopped me from cooking, stopped me from learning.

I resigned myself to my mother's legacy and decided to downslide straight to into another drive-thru diet. It must genetic. I'll never get it right.

Then I visited a friend down in Champagne, Illinois. Emily cooks to save money and because she likes to experiment. She agreed that I was stupid, and I needed to get back in the kitchen. She made me stir the mushroom risotto. I browned the little white grains in olive oil and a pad of butter for richness. I poured beef stock slowly, and stirred up quickly as the grains lapped up the moisture. Then a touch of white wine and let the alcohol burn off. I stirred, I poured, I repeated. The dried mushrooms had bulked up in a cup of warm water and I added them in with chucks of porcini, Portobello, and little white buttons. I was making up with mushrooms again.

Sitting down to dinner at ten, I wasn't nervous to taste the outcome. I sampled some pinot grio, had a bite of steak, and tried the risotto. The layers of woodsy Portobello melted into the butter-wine and finished with a milky parmesano-reggiano. I embraced it with every part of my mouth. It was good to be back.