I have been cooking ever since I can remember, and spent numerous weeks being grounded in gradeschool for "experimenting" in the kitchen whenever my parents would leave me alone. I like to think that I have improved since then. I will still admit that maybe once a year I prepare a dish so terrible that I deserve to be grounded! I love to cook (and eat!) Italian and Indian food the most. I also love Asian cuisine, but I leave that up to my husband because he's an expert in that field. I am health conscious and always looking for new healthy recipes, or ways to make old favorites healthier without sacrificing taste. Through high school I worked as an in-house cook at a rectory, cooking for two priests. I would plan the meal, prepare it, and clean it up afterward. I think my main triumph was not getting fired. In fact, I think they ate every meal. Of course, they were priests so maybe they were just being polite... :) My biggest (and most recent) "critical failure" would have to have been chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips about 2 years ago. I'd even made a special trip to the grocer to pick up the white chips! They baked beautifully and smelled delicious. I took the first bite and it was great... for about 3 seconds. Then the terrible taste of pure baking soda set in. Apparently, in a blonde moment, I misread teaspoons as tablespoons. It was SO depressing to throw those away!