I was born and raised in a rural farming community in North Dakota. As so, my mom made everything homemade, from bread to mac & cheese to fudge. And, it seems like everything was made with the tastiest, freshest ingredients straight from the source! She is renowned for her desserts and I'm hopeful her recipes, along with my grandmothers', are helping me impress another generation! I adore baking classic Christmas treats: fudge, caramels, russian tea cakes, pecan tarts, etc. Although I'm more of a baker than a cook, I do enjoy cooking Asian cuisine as it is one of my favorite cuisine genres to eat. Since I can remember, my family bakes Christmas goodies together. We all take part in beating the fudge, decorating cookies, wrapping the caramels, filling tarts . . . there is nothing like the anticipation of waiting for mom's homedmade fudge to set enough to eat! Sugar cookies and the decorating that follows are a family tradition for every holiday. And, back in the days of "The Wonderful World of Disney" movie nights, my mom would whip up a batch of homemade soft and chewy caramel corn. Now that most of my siblings are older and have their own families, these traditions continue with the next generation of our family. Still hoping to have it. It would be making fudge like my mom makes it . . . at least once. Perfecting fudge meant a number of failed batches. And, while many times I accept the blame, there were a few times I could blame the failure on the temperature or the humidity of the day. I mean, that's fair, right?!