I'm the baker of the family. I grew up following recipes to the letter, making cookies and pies with my maternal grandmother when I was old enough to reach the kitchen counter. On the other hand, my husband also loves to cook and rarely follows a recipe; he prefers to make it up as he goes and tweaks old favorites to see if he can improve them. Together we keep things interesting in our tiny kitchen and our daughter has a quite sophisticated palate for a grade schooler. Hopefully our son will too! I love to make breads, muffins, cookies, pies - anything that fills the house with good smells. I'll eat carbs until the day I die. I also love to make indian curries with my own curry powder that I mix myself. My mom has her mothers' old cookbook and I'm getting a few good recipes from her here and there. I loved helping my grandmother in our kitchen growing up and I encourage my daughter to join me to continue that tradition. Triumphs? I guess anything that I've made for my family that got totally devoured and they request it again and again. Other than a cookie fiasco with my sister from way back, I can't recall anything recently that went over like a lead balloon.