I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. I'm 27. I moved to Phoenix, Arizona in late 2002. I'm a nurse. I was a single mom for about four years. Definitely some hard times there. Don't know how my mother did it, with three kids! I worked alot. Long hours.Night shift, no less. Did'nt have alot time with my daughter. I did'nt have alot time for anything for that matter! Most of our meals were either quick and easy, or take out (bad mommy!). I admit it was getting old. In early 2005 I met my then-future-husband Luciano. He was a single father too! We dated for about a year, then got married.I thank God that he's not a picky eater. Now my kids that's another story....For a while, it was anything chicken, no red meats, and anything pasta/italian dishes, one of my kids like seafood the other does'nt, yadda, yadda. I managed to sneak in a couple of new foods thier way, and so far they liked them. For a while it was cassaroles and desserts. Lately I've been more into soup and salad. There's a great recipe called "Spicy Chicken and Rice Soup" it is soooo good. Serve it over a handful of tortilla chips, a little squeeze of lime juice......mmmmm yummo! Well, when I was back home in L.A. My grandmother used to make tamales and posole for the holidays, instead of the traditonal turkey and stuffing. I was a little girl at the time, but I remember standing on a chair watching my grandma cook. Cooking tamales was time consuming and took all day, so my mom and my aunt would help, and me too of course! I think I made more of a mess than help out but either way I had fun! A homemade chicken pot pie. It was perfect. Flaky crust, hearty filling with veggies and chicken, lots of cheese, soo good. My husband kept asking me to make it! I tried making Fideo. It's kinda like mexican spagehtti. It's a very common and a basic mexican dish. I've made it before and it came out fine. This last time, OMG....disaster! I cooked the angel hair pasta way too long, I burned it. Instead of regular tomato sauce, I used "Pato" sauce which another type of tomato sauce, very spicy! I had no idea how spicey it was so used the whole can. Then like a dork I put sugar in it cut down the spicy-ness.... yeah like I said before complete DISASTER!!