i was born and raised in chicago, always loved baking and cooking with my mom. 4 years ago i moved to england and married my perfect man. when my husband and i started to live together, i wanted to make more well rounded meals for the two of us [when i was living alone, my dinners often consisted of microwave popcorn, or a bag of yellow rice!]. i asked my mom for her recipes, started making my way through numerous cookbooks, and am finally at the point where i can improvise! my husband thinks that i'm the best cook/baker in the world and raves about me to his family/friends. his family are often asking me to bake little treats when they have visitors around. i know that i'm still learning, but am certainly enjoying the process! i have a real soft spot for baking. i suppose it's because of my sweet tooth. i can rarely resist trying something when it just comes out of the oven. the smell is too much! i also love making traditional american treats [both sweet and savory] that i miss from back home. i've recently been impressed with my own ability to make flour tortillas and biscotti from scratch. with both, when i finised cooking them, i just kept looking at them and saying: "i made this! it looks exactly how it's supposed to look!" i was making a delicious vegetable pie for my husband's family [10 people-- so stressful for me, who only ever cooks for 2-4]. i was using my mother-in-law's baking dishes and oven, and they're not quite the same as mine. i obviously filled the dishes too full and they bubbled over in the oven, dripping the filling into the bottom of the oven. this happened pretty early on, so what had fallen out began to burn and smoke out the whole kitchen! the result was that the pies still tasted great, but i felt pretty embarassed. my mother-in-law also refused to let me clean her burnt oven because i'd been kind enough to make dinner for everyone. unfortunately, that made me feel even worse.