In honor of Valentine’s Day, our bloggers group chose this topic. It only took me a few seconds to think how it applies to me: if I love you, I COOK for you! I grew up in the kitchen of a skilled and ambitious cook. My mother, from the hills of Appalachia, found herself a young lawyer’s wife in “old money” Lexington, Kentucky, and taught herself French cooking by working her way through the Escoffier cookbook. Her chocolate pastry cake, cream puffs filled with vanilla custard, boeuf bourgignon, zabaglione and homemade caramels were the stuff of legend. We ate “raw” spinach salads (grown in her salad garden), which was UNHEARD…