Raised on southern cooking, I'm now a busy single mom who tries diligently to resist the urge of the drive-thru or the frozen food aisle. I'm working on learning to cook low-fat, whole foods that are way healthier than anything I've ever been accustomed to cooking. It is a process. This year is also the year I steer my children away from dinosaur chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese and introduce things like vegetables into their diet. It isn't going well. Things that are quick, easy and delightful are my favorite things to make; I also love to use the fresh foods of the Skagit Valley when they are in season. My absolute favorite things to make? My kids' favorite food of mine: banana bread, meatloaf, tacos, and breakfast for dinner. Anytime they are happy, I'm usually right behind them. Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, pulled pork BBQ on special celebrations, these are the food traditions. When it comes to cooking traditions, I love trying to make things for the holidays--treats for co-workers, etc. or making a meal for a larger group of people. I also love watching my brother cook--he is an expert chef, while watching my mom make food is seeing love being served up to a small Russian army. There are only a few, and all of them related to mastering my favorite recipes from my youth. When I learned to make my mom's potato soup, I was fairly ecstatic. Of course, it involved watching her make the potato soup and secretly measuring out all of her ingredients before I would try it at home, but it worked. Also, the time my brother and I decided in March that we haaaaad to have our mom's Thanksgiving stuffing and she was busy out being a snow bird, yet were able to adequately recreate the masterpiece was a fairly monumental occasion. While I've come to terms that my fried chicken will never quite be the same, nor will I ever exactly get her BBQ sauce down pat, I do have high hopes of conquering her cinnamon rolls before I hit my 40's. Oh, that and actually adding new recipes to my repertoire. Growing up, I learned to bake before I could cook. I used to be the best cookie maker ever. Now, not so much. To my deepest chagrin, my cookies never turn out looking like a cookie now...they are either flat and undercooked or flat and crispy. Deep tragedy. I've resorted to buying all my cookie dough from school fundraisers.