Culinary secrets are always passed down from master chef to master chef, so naturally the first, and best, cooking tips come from Mom. It's as true for the experts as it is for the home cook--as Ming Tsai, Sara Moulton and Curtis Aikens demonstrate:

Ming Tsai
"My parents used to have a restaurant in Dayton, Ohio, called Mandarin Kitchen, and that was my start into cooking. I started helping out my mother, Iris, when I was 13 or so, doing all the prep stuff, like making rice. My mother taught me the traditional way to make rice, which I call the Mt. Fuji method. First you wash the rice till the water runs clear to wash away all the starch. Then you put it in the pan, put your hand flat on top of the rice, and fill water up to your first knuckle of your index finger knuckle nearest your palm. It always works, no matter what size your hand is. My mom also taught me how to make pot stickers, and to this day, she can roll out the skins much more proficiently than I can. She's got very soft, very loving hands that roll out the dumpling dough. And she also taught me to make some great fillings. My favorite are still her Boiled Garlic Chive Dumplings."

Sara Moulton
"My mother somehow knew about cool ingredients, and even when I was little we would eat things like arugula and fresh fennel and endive. I don't know how she knew about these things, but she wasn't afraid to experiment with them and she introduced us to new ingredients all the time. Any time we traveled, we'd come home and find the ingredients at markets in New York. When I was 16, my mother took my sister and me to spring break in Rome and Greece, and when we came back, we had a dinner party and served Moussaka and kalamata olives. It was lots of fun. As a family, we'd get into these food fads, where we'd have our Greek period, or beef fondue, or special sauces. I guess she did this to get out of the rut and to expand her repertoire. My mother was a fabulous cook, and she had a real sense of adventure about food and cooking."

Curtis Aikens
"To watch my mother work in the kitchen was a joy for me. I loved to watch her making Biscuits in the morning for breakfast. She did it so fast, so skillfully--I can remember taking photographs of her making them because it was such a beautiful, loving sight. Breakfasts were something in our house. There was nothing like Mama's eggs and Grits. Her grits were da bomb! One important thing I learned from her was that fresh is best. My family grew a lot of its own food and Mom taught me that homemade is always the best. But the biggest thing I learned from Mom is 'love in and love out,' which means that if you take your time and prepare the food with love and with attention, it's not just a labor of love or an expression of love, it is love."

Recipes Biscuits Grits Moussaka Boiled Garlic Chive Dumplings