My mother taught me how to roast chiles over a gas flame. She also taught me to make frijoles refritos (refried beans) and a very complicated sauce from Oaxaca called mole poblano. Her name was Judith Ann McGlaughlin and she hated to cook, but she took her family around the world with exotic flavors & recipes she clipped from magazines anyway. Some of her dishes were marvelous, others the kind of food Americans only imagine is ethnic. African meatloal comes to mind. *shudder*