Best your mom, dad, or immediate family made

Not something our family made and I had no clue until recently what pesto was. I keep a jar of it (I know it won't compete) to use as a topping on a sauce or pizza.

Fabada is news to me. Looked it up and it looks yummy.  

I know mom could school Jim of INKS (International Nefarious Killing Squad) fame on how to properly fry eggs. 

Must be good to comment on it in SF, where bread is a whole new dimension

Grandmothers were the cooks in my family. Almost every Sunday lunch was like a Thanksgiving feast at my paternal granparents’ house. My maternal grandmother made the best cornbread and beans I ever tasted then or since.

My mother made pot roast.
She took a cheap chuck roast and worked magic with it. Very simple, seasoned with salt, pepper and a bay leaf, she would seer it in a dutch oven, add carrots, onion and potato and cook for a couple o hours on the stove top. I make a pretty decent pot roast, but it never compares to my mother's.

BTW, my mother would sear the pot roast not seer it. She always seemed to know what I was doing, but I don't think she was clairvoyant

My mom wasn't the best cook that I have ever had, but the love in it made up for it. Her calves liver was so tough even she joked about it. I realized later that she did the best she could with the money we had. We were living on $86 a month. I thought fried bologna was a special treat.
The best things she cooked were out of this world great. Her legendary items always requested were her potato salad, date rolls, fruit salad, salmon patties, cornbread and pumpkin pie.
We bought a couple of bushels of peaches every year directly from the orchard. She spent 2 days turning them into fried pies for the church bazaar. When she pulled the big 59 Ford Galaxie into the parking lot, 20 to 30 people would crowd the car to get them. They never made it to the sale tables. Had to hide a dozen or so for the pastor.

A lot people are unaware of where the Chuck comes from. One side is next to the ribeye and the First Cut Chuck is often stuck in with the Rib Steaks at a higher price. All of the Chuck meat is sweeter than Hindquarter, where the T-Bones come from. That and the price (which is now high) was why many people love Mom's Pot Roasts and Stews. Round Steak and even some parts of the Sirloin don't compare

When I was a meat peddler I might sell a small butcher shop a side of beef for a buck a pound and buy first cut chucks back for .79/pound

I have been peed over prices of chuck these past few years. I just got a call from a butcher shop that will deliver once a month, so we can get a few hams and some large meat orders without paying exorbitant delivery prices.  

sparks sometimes (with me, almost always) sauce is the difference. On Thanksgiving, Xuan makes whatever poultry we may have, usually whole or split chicken. Then she makes a dipping duck style sauce that makes it all the best.

Charlie, my grandmother had us over for lunch every Sunday for decades. While we ate she would stand there and wait on us. I know I asked her about why one time. Don't recall the answer. She was my best friend up until she passed. I drove to sit with her almost daily. I got the two coffee cups we used to drink from after she passed. What a lady

trailboss ... I believe that's "colitas" in the song and refers to tasty buds.

...literally: "the smell of buds"...

My old mother, rest her soul, made the greatest Beef Stew ever tasted. A little tangy. She always used a Griswald Dutch Oven which came from her mother. I have it now. Try as I can, never been able to match her flavor.

Another hit was "Chicken Divan", a recipe from the 50s. Chicken breasts, sliced, with broccoli in a sherry cream sauce and topped with crisp bread crumbs. I could eat an entire pan of it.

On special occasions, when she was in a fancy mood, she made Beef Bourgonione. Never been able to reproduce that, either.

What my grandma steamed was some sort of wild greenery... not sure of the spelling, but she pronounced it as colitis.... and since she was born circa 1900 her colitis predates Glenn Frey’s.😝

That is the wild "Spinach" which grows in these parts. Very good, usually fried with onions.