I was born and raised, and am still living on the North Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. I have worked for a local publishing company for 19 years. I have a great husband, Jim, and a son, Cole. Definitely dinner. I do like to bake a little, but I really enjoy planning and preparing all of our after work/after school meals. I will do breakfast and lunch on the weekends, but they are more snacks. Cooking is what I think about during the day, and before leaving work I'll go to all-recipes and figure out what we are going to have. Thankfully my husband is agreeable to just about anything I come up with. Cole, on the other hand, is a typical picky child. Fortunately, his favorite food is steak! I grew up on a small cattle farm, and my paternal grandmother was the cook. Although I cannot remember any cooking traditions I do remember holiday gatherings at her home. I have started a couple of traditions for my family now. Friday is Steak, Baked Potato, Broccoli night. Needless to say, Friday is Cole's favorite day. There was a restaurant in our town that made this really great chicken dish. I ate it probably once a week when I was pregnant. The restaurant would not divulge the recipe to me (makes sense) and then it went out of business (kharma?). So I started messing around with what I thought was in the sauce just by memory (it had been about 2 years since I had actually eaten it). It took about 5 different tries, each not horrible, but not "it". Then, one night, I got it. Jim was blown away. Told me that it was even BETTER than when we had it at the restaurant. He's been telling me now for quite a while that I should submit it here. I did finally write it down (with his help) and submitted it a couple of months ago. And I still make it for Jim about twice a month. I didn't start really cooking in earnest until I met Jim. In the beginning all I had was this one cookbook about "brand name" recipes. There was a "Ranch" style casserole dish that I tried. It called for all sorts of vegetables, so I bought a bag of frozen mixed veggies. Well, I didn't read the recipe very well, and threw the veggies in while still frozen. Not only did the water that resulted from the thawing process in the oven destroy the whole thing, the veggies were still not completely unfrozen when the time was up. It was awful. But Jim still thinks it wasn't that bad. What a guy!! I also spill things. Alot.