I started cooking at my mother's side as soon as I was out of diapers. When my husband and I married, he weighed 134 lbs. Seven months and many meals later, he had gained 43 lbs! My joys are my Professional 600 KitchenAid mixer and all my Cuisinart appliances. My favorite recipes besides on AllRecipes, can be found in Quick Cooking and Taste Of Home. I only wish they were published more often! I also enjoy picking up community published recipe books and cookbooks; to me, those are the best of all. Traditional American comfort food (i.e. beef and noodles, etc.). I also enjoy cooking Italian, Mexican, some German food (Rivals, sauerkraut, etc). Did I mention I enjoy baking and cake decorating? I also enjoy making various candies at Christmas time and my friend, family, and my son's teachers have told me how much they enjoy receiving their annual mixed box of delectable creations from my kitchen. Favorite foods to prepare are appetizers, party food and traditional American Sunday dinners. Our family cooking traditions are preparing the usual American Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. To us, these consist of turkey or pineapple ham (according to the holiday), harvest potatoes, sweet potatoes with pineapple, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, homemade bread with cinnamon apple butter, pumpkin or lemon pie, Christ cake for Christmas. Also no matter what the occasion, cranberry relish. Until her old age caused her to become pleasantly confused and one of my siblings moved away and at the same time my only sister boycotted family celebrations, my siblings and I would meet at my parent's house where my mother (aka Betty Crocker) always prepared the main dish, the cheese tray and relish tray. My sisters-in-law would each bring something simple like the dinner rolls or a bakery cake or pie and I got to make most of the sides. After the dinner was over, with great joy I would watch my siblings compete over who would get to take my leftovers home! Catering parties, wedding receptions, baby showers, OSU Buckeye Football parties. This isn't my career, but something I find very fulfilling. Hanging my head in shame as I admit this: I have set other people's ovens on fire--not once, but twice. How did this happen? I found out the hard way that some people who do not bake, store paper goods, snacks, etc., in their ovens. After the second fire, I learned the valuable lesson of taking time to open the oven and making sure all is clear before preheating!