I can cook and bake (she says, without a hint of smugness, honest!). I learned from my mother and grandmother, and now recipe books are sources of ideas, not just lists of instructions.
I think it really helps to be taught by somebody, not learn from a book... I learned to do the 'add as much as it needs and cook it till it's done' way which makes life so much easier, especially when you're catering for a different number of people than it says in the book! Lots of practice is good, too, doing a recipe once and having it turn out bad should be a challenge. My recipe books are covered in notes like 'it works better if you do this' or 'replace this with that for a better flavour' or 'cook it for an hour, not forty minutes, the author clearly had a better oven than me'.
Some of my best dishes... rissotto, especially with salmon. Blackberry jam. Chicken pie. Mushroom soup. Fruit cake. Gooseberry fool. And I do very good pancakes, the secret is to beat the egg into the milk first then add flour and milk until you get the consistency right, and make sure the pan's hot to start with. Oh, and I do roast lamb with all the trimmings to die for - I knew that had turned out well when my mother was impressed! Although gravy is still a work in progress, I'm still trying to figure out why mum's gravy thickens and mine doesn't when we use the same recipe...
Topic: Baking!