I love rich saucy foods. I think that my specialties are my own created soups and stews. Pasta would be my next favortie. I try to cook different things all of the time as well as new things. This way we never get bored. I just enjoy sipping a glass of wine and cooking a great gourmet meal atleast twice a week. We also love to entertain when we can and use new recipes from allrecipies.com, my books, or our own creations that we have enjoyed and let our friends enjoy them. Grilling, I can't leave grilling out, we grill all summer long. Moms Stuffed Bell Peppers that simmer in a red sauce for hours. We grew up with this as a favorite and most requested still. I have my own version now. Life wouldn't be complete without a summer shrimp boil southern style. Baby new poatato, corn cobs, sausage, shrimp, crawfish, onion, and shrimp boil mix. All dumped straight onto freezer paper at the table for everyone to peel shrimp and dig in. Really I have had many triumphs as well as "just ok's" when trying to experiment with new ideas I conjure up. I love to play with food flavors. I think best are when I send food over to neighbors or church potlucks and they come knocking at my door for the recipe. Countless times I have had people over and I have to jot down how I cook something. It really is a good feeling when food warms a persons heart. Recently my best triumph is that I recreated my grandmothers old world recipe passed down through our family from the Volga German side. It was Bierocks, and I nailed it to a T as to how I remembered it tasting and what she added, even the dough. I passed those out to the neighbors and had to give recipes to all of them. Another great feeling! When I was 8 years old I made a "Spinach Souffle" for my family as part of my 4-H group home project. They were all so excited, and parents and brother were expecting a feast. It was so beautifull when it came out of the oven, like a picture in a cook book, perfect. As we began to serve each other and eat at our fully set table with candles and all... I noticed puckered faces, smiles and a giggling brother. They said, yum, very good and still ate. I finally took a bite myself, it appears that I misread the ingredients. I had added 1 heaping Tablespoon of salt, not 1 teaspoon of salt. Since then, I have always been very careful if cooking from a recipe.