My hobby has always been cooking and baking. I have to shout out to the 4-H program on this. I still use many recipes from the baking and home canning projects. I really love the baked sweets. There's nothing like something sweet, chocolate and fresh from the oven! My mother worked very hard to garden and farm enough food to feed six of us. We always had farm fresh food growing up, even though we didn't appreciate it at the time. Now that I'm older I've really gone back to those roots, and am working to grow our own food, and to buy from local farmers when I can. I am very concerned with the amount of pesticides and other chemicals used on standard supermarket food, and the consequences for our environment and our health. I made THE BEST EVER roasted chicken pot pie from an article in Fine Cooking. I served it to a friend who is a chef and she asked me for the recipe! Oh, there are so many. I think the funniest was my first attempt at lava cakes. I made them according to directions, but the stove in our apartment cooked low (didn't know that then tho!) and when I served my lava cakes, the insides were just goo, not a cake with a lava center. I was mortified, until the couple we were hosting picked up their cake plates and drank the chocolate goo right off the edge. My husband and I followed suit, and darned if it wasn't the tastiest goo!