I'm a wife, mother of two little ones, step-mom to two young adults, a full-time 16 year veteran cop & lifelong foodie! I grew up in a military family & spent my childhood eating fresh coconut, pineapple & mango - along with li hing mui & dried squid among other local delicacies - in the sunshine of Hawaii. I moved to Ohio in the 70's, spent a couple of years in L.A. (Lower Alabama) and have lived in Ohio all my adult life. I started cooking as a teenager when my mom went to work. At 14 I was responsible for the family dinner several nights a week. It was great training & I enjoyed it. Both my grandmas were great cooks and each side of the family held large dinners every week & on holidays. Those are some of my favorite childhood memories. Holiday and special occasion meals. My own recipes - Chicken noodle soup, pepper steak, soup beans w/ ham, beef stroganoff, scratch mac & cheese, french toast, cakes & cookies w/ homemade buttercream icing, from-scratch brownies. Large holiday meals complete with many dessert choices! Eating something in a restaurant that is just good but not great, and then making it a great recipe in my own kitchen. Anything I make that my husband likes, because he's like "Mikey" and hates everything. However, he loves most of what I make. My chicken noodle soup is my own recipe & is always a hit. Whenever people ask for a recipe & its all or mostly my own ideas, that's a triumph! Banana nut brick (forgot to add the baking powder), a sugarless pecan pie (overlooked the sugar on the recipe card), crock-pot chicken & starch-ball (supposed to be chicken & noodles I thought I'd save a step & cook the noodles w/ the chicken). All these were done in my early days of cooking. More recently I attempted to make a filled birthday cake with a cooked icing...don't know what went wrong but the icing seized up & the cake ended up looking like an earthquake scene. I bought one at the store for the party.