Your mom and my paternal grandmother may have a few relatives in common. The local thrift stores used to keep extra pots and pans behind the counter, just for my grandmother. She had the ability to burn water; and in doing so managed to ruin a LOT of pots and pans.

Her cooking skills were so bad that my dad and his siblings had open invitations to eat at their friends house whenever they wanted. This was in the early 1940's. Back when children could be disciplined in public and/or put on bread and water rations.