I am a child and adolescent counselor. I love to cook and it relaxes me at the end of a long day. Cooking is one of my passions and I love reading cookbooks and finding new recipes to try. I like to try new things and my husband loves all of the recipes I try out. I love spicy foods and Mexican and Indian cuisines are my favorite, along with good old southern food. Making cookies and desserts at Christmas with my family. Watching my grandmothers cook and learning from them. Both of my grandmothers were phenomenal cooks and I would love to be in the kitchen with them. My grandmother's nut cake each Christmas was my absolute favorite thing to eat and still is. I loved, loved, loved the nut pound cake my grandmother made each year at Christmas. She passed away in 1997 so since then each year at Christmas I have been tinkering with a recipe and making changes trying to perfect my grandmother's recipe. Last year I think I finally arrived at it and my father said "this year I think you finally have it...it tastes just like my mother's nut cake." Gosh, I felt proud not to mention it took me 11 years to finally get it right. Where to begin? I once made a chocolate pound cake for a family reunion and was moving it from one counter to another and dropped it on the floor. I thought about picking it up for two seconds but didn't and then decided to bake another one. My first attempt at making brown gravy was not good and my husband said it just tasted like worchestershire sauce. I have gotten good at making gravy since then.