I live in Binghamton, NY with my wonderful husband and beautiful 2 year old daughter. I am passionate about good food and good company. My big 5-year goal is to return to school to pursue a degree in interior architecture and design with a concentration in kitchen and bath design. I enjoy experimenting with traditional recipes to put new twists on them. I enjoy Italian, Mexican and Asian dishes the most, although I am sure I would enjoy European and Middle Eastern dishes as well, although I haven't really done much with them yet. I am currently working on learning some of the fine points of French cuisine, which I find to be simple, yet elegant, tasty and delightful. One of the most simple things I remember is making our traditional Easter egg bread ring every Easter...oh, the smell of fresh baked bread is so powerful. There were also a lot of traditional German things like sour kraut and kielbasa, and heavy things like chicken fricassee with elbow macaroni and white sauce. Grandma made an amazing split pea soup and mocha frosting (not together, ha ha), and Dad made amazing home made pasta sauce and gravies. My household may have been a heart attack waiting to happen, but the food was always delicious. The first time I ever cooked, I was 7 years old. My first dish?: scrambled eggs. And yes, they were cooked all the way through without being gooey. My most recent triumph was a "display cake" (I call it that because it looked so beautiful I almost didn't want to cut into it) made from a Bobby Flay recipe that included chocolate and espresso cake layers with dark chocolate and toffee ganache between them. The entire cake was then frosted with coconut butter cream and then coated in coconut flakes. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. The kind of thing that makes me wonder if I should make cakes on the side... I cannot tell a lie...I can't even count them all. Perhaps the worst was an entire sheet carrot cake I attempted, not knowing how much batter I would need, nor the temperature or duration it should be baked for. It ended up overflowing and the center never entirely cooked through. For such a dense recipe (my carrot cake recipe is unbelievably rich) I still don't know if I was being ambitious or just plain dumb.