Born in 1957, I've been cooking for a long time now, but have only gotten good at it in the last 20 years. I don't always use recipes for everyday meals - I cook by instinct (or is it habit?!) a lot. I usually do follow the recipe for baked goods, or a new dish, at least the first time I make it. After that, I fiddle around with the ingredients, or tweak the seasonings... just can't resist experimenting! Growing up on a small farm in central Pennsylvania, I learned to appreciate FRESH meats, fish, milk, fruits and vegetables. I love to bake, and put together Yule gift baskets of homemade baked goods, as well as jam, jelly and candy. Here in New Mexico, a lot of my "landscaping" is actually edible - I grow a LOT of herbs, and like discovering new ways to put them to use. My mother, grandmother, aunts and neighbors were mostly what I call "practical cooks" - they could make a meal out of practically anything! - so I learned how to make do with what was on hand. Also love the ethnic foods I grew up with, such as the central European peirogies, keilbasa, kolaches, halupke... and Amish pies, cakes and cookies... MMM! And then there's the New Mexican cuisine I've been introduced to by my husband's family... homemade tortillas, sopapillas, enchiladas, tamales, posole, red chile, green chile... Goodness!!! I've gotten pretty good with sauces and gravies over the years. I have a nephew who HATES onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, but LOVED my spaghetti sauce, which had all those ingredients hidden within! And I have managed to successfully combine different ethnic foods, such as: adding chopped roasted green chile to traditional PA Dutch chicken & corn soup with rivvels, or adding anise seed to shortbread cookies, for Scottish biscochitos. Too numerous to mention! Well, there was that inadvertently smoked turkey: I didn't plan the whole turkey feast with mashed & gravy, etc; I just needed to get the bird out of the freezer, and was slow roasting it at a lower than usual temperature (275 or 300 degrees?)with the intention of using the meat for sandwiches and casseroles, and the carcass for soup. It was almost done when we got an invitation to a family card game across town. I figured it would be okay if I turned off the oven at the last minute and left the bird to cool in the oven until we got home. EXCEPT I FORGOT TO TURN OFF THE OVEN!!! By the time we got home, the bird's extremities were burned black, and the skin was leathery, most of the meat was was dry and not fit for sandwiches at all (think Turkey Jerky!) I salvaged what I could of the meat and bones, and after a LOT of simmering, it did make for a quite passable smokey turkey vegetable soup!