I LOVE cooking for my husband and 4 children. I also love throwing elegant dinner parties! My specialty is gourmet healthy cuisine. I try to incorporate as many raw fruits and veggies into our dishes to make them super healthy. We do eat regular not-so-healthy food for special occasions. I also enjoy baking and icing specialty cakes for showers and parties. Breads and rolls are also my specialty--I have been baking and selling yeast breads since I was a young girl. One of my other favorite things to do is to take new parents a home cooked meal. I am known for my pecan crusted chicken, gourmet salads and homemade rolls. Birthday's were always a special time in my family as I was growing up. The birthday person was always treated by the rest of the family with a gourmet breakfast in bed. Also, the birthday person had a special dinner to celebrate with the menu of their choice. Now, I continue those traditions in my family with my husband and four children. It is such a delight to bless someone with delicious food! I recently cooked a full course hot meal for almost 200 people (with some help)! The food turned out great with tons of people requesting the recipes! There are many others, but one that stands out in my mind in particular was a two-tiered wedding shower cake that I made for a friend's shower recently--I baked the Allrecipes "Fabulous Orange Cake" then smooth-iced it with "Whipped Cream Cream Cheese" frosting and I piped it around the edges as well. The crowing jewel was the topping of seedless raspberry jam glazed fresh strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. Not only was the presentation gorgeous and elegant it was so moist and delicious and the frosting was not too sweet, but it was fluffy and a perfect combination of flavors. As a newlywed I tried a Martha Stewart recipe that called for lemon zest--I didn't have all of the fancy kitchen gadgets that I have now, so I decided to zest the lemon in the food processor. Big mistake--it got too much of the white part of the lemon and the recipe was too overwhelmingly lemon rind and bitter--we had to throw the recipe away!