How Do You Cook Corn?

I grew up surrounded by corn.  Literally.  There was a dairy farm down the street, and one of their corn fields ran parallel to my yard.  We used to run around the fields and play hide and seek.  Even so, however, I have no idea how to cook corn on the cob.  We ate it regularly and, while I was in charge of husking the corn on the front porch, my mom was the corn cooking master.  Whatever she says, goes, and, while this is true in pretty much every aspect of our lives, she's particularly particular about her corn.  (And hamburgers, but that's a story for another time.)

So the moral of the story is: I don't know how to cook corn.  The only wisdom my mom imparted to me is a story she tells every time we eat corn about how we once visited one of her college friends and she put the corn on to cook right before we all left to go to a playground down the road.  We were at the park for an hour, probably, and the corn was still cooking when we got back.  Mom thinks that's way too long to cook corn, and she'll be willing to tell you so any chance she has.

Shelle and I have been enjoying some corn this season (not yet fresh from farm stands, but we're getting there), and when it came time to cook it, neither of us were sure quite what to do.  A quick internet search yielded a variety of results - put the corn in and then bring it to a boil, bring the water to a boil and then put the corn in, cook it for one minute, cook it for ten minutes, you get the idea.  We basically ignored it all and went with our gut feeling - and it was wrong.  Our corn is weird.  It's either overdone or underdone, but we can't tell which.  It's weirdly chewy, not crisp like corn should be.  So this begs a question to all of you: How do you cook corn?

Maybe I'd better just call my mother.