I'm nineteen years old, and I just moved up to New York last year. (Yay! One year! :3) I always enjoyed baking cookies and brownies for friends and family while I was back home with all of them, but now that I'm here, I miss being able to do that. So.. I've started baking sweets for the people I work with! :3 I've always wanted to become a great baker, but I never really knew where to start with trying new recipes ('cause I don't believe that all cookbooks are created equal; I like the ones with real reviews!), so I was really glad when my mom found this website and shared it with me. Now we can send each other cool recipes and stuff! :3 I like reading all the reviews and substitutions people add to this site. But anyway, I like cooking, and I want to get good at it, so here I am!!! :D I like baking the most, really, and my favorite things to make so far (not much that I've tried yet, really!) have been the fudge, cookies, and brownies. But I'm really looking forward to trying out new recipes like this jalepeno jelly that I think my mom would like, and a few others, too. Drinks, dips, entrees, fun/creative dishes, and home-cooking (like my mom's *drooool*) are among my top interests, too. But mostly I like to make sweets that will make people smile! :3 Well, I can list my favorites that my mom makes, but I don't have a list of my own (or a family that I've started either, for that matter! :3). I looove all my mom's cooking (except asparagus and things like that lol *love you, Mom!*), but my favorites are her dishes like the green-bean, potato, and sausage dish; her cheesecake; meatloaf; pork chops; burgers; beer-can chicken (or Sprite-can :3); and enchiladas. Oh, and her 7-layer dip, kitty-litter cake, and spaghetti cake are to die for, too!!! :3 My first cooking triumph was when I made the kitty-litter cake for Halloween, and it actually came out pretty well! I was so happy! :3 Also, I just made some fudge for the first time by myself (about 40 pieces), and I took it to work, and it was gone in a few hours- that was so cool!!! :D The cooking tragedy that stands out most in my mind is the time that I made chocolate chip cookies (pre-packaged) with the oven off. Yeah. I was making them for some friends, and I accidentally turned off the pre-heat alert AND the oven! Oops! lol It took 45 minutes to make that one batch of cookies, and I kept wondering, Why is it taking 45 when it should only take 19-20 minutes?! Heh heh heh, it was really funny, and my friends ate them anyway. lol :3 And this next one doesn't really count as a tragedy, but it's kinda funny. I finally learned- after a year or two- how to make decent scrambled eggs and pancakes. Can you believe it?! lol My little sister would always make them for me because mine were so awful! lol But once I moved up here, I was forced to make my own, so I finally got it! There were several breakfasts that I didn't want to eat, though! hee hee! :3