Ha, your cook was scamming you. My grandma, born at the turn of the century, helped grandpa run their newspaper, helped work their cattle ranch, had a garden, raised a family and still had time for church and visiting. No hired hands except during hay baling.
If our 9 year old can pull off the perfect from scratch Thanksgiving, surely an adult can. Every year, I post on FR my Thanksgiving dinner timer including plenty of rest and visit time. Yes, longer than my usual half hour of hands on but it is a big holiday dinner. The year I was sick, our 9 year old made the entire shebang by herself, from scratch, homemade dough for pies and rolls, baked sweet potatoes out of the oven rather than a can and no nasty boxed stuffing.
I have always cooked from scratch even when I worked and had kids to raise but I don't do more than half an hour of actual hands on work. There are no El Monterey frozen burritos, Stouffer's frozen lasagna or Tyson dinosaur chicken nuggets in the freezer. There is 1 last ziplock baggie of homemade pork tamales so will have to make more all by my lonesome - it doesn't take all the cousins, in-laws and neighborhood. There are no Oreos or a box of Krispy Creams on the counter. We don't eat out (barf) so there are no Chinese takeout containers or leftover McDonald's in the fridge. There are a couple slices of leftover homemade pizza in the fridge. Sure, the dough was from already ground wheat and the Italian sausage was squeezed out of store bought casings and fried in grandma's old cast iron skillet and the mozz was store bought though there is some homemade ricotta in the freezer because I over heated a batch of yogurt. BTW, we can't afford a cook so my usual .72 cent qt of plain yogurt can be turned into a simple $1.25 8x8" cheesecake so try paying that at the bakery or a private chef's wages.
Well, in defense of our nice cook lady, my mother authored a popular cook book, my father was associated with 2nd biggest kingdom in India prior to independence from British Raj, and food menu’s were quite elaborate at our house. Even the Queen liked to visit our house for dinners because she was well aware of my mother’s cooking skills.
I commend you for all that cooking from scratch. I spent too many hours at Royal Oaks CC playing golf in Washington state. The food in the club house there was all made from scratch by highly skilled chefs who worked for the club.
+1
(Agreed. But it takes practice and knowledge from listening to one’s elders to know how.)