I've been married to my hubby for 28 years. We are now empty nesters. Our 2 kids have flown the coop. I've been a stay at home mom, making it easy to perfect our favorite dishes. We love to entertain. Other than my family, my favorite love is cooking, and feeding people gives me great joy. I love to make authentic Italian dishes but I also love to barbecue. Actually I do all the prep and my hubby does the barbecuing. I also love to make appetizers. I don't do a lot of baking, but my desert specialties for company are tiramisu and deep fried cheesecake(which is too die for). Don't really have any. I guess I'll have to work on making my own. I put on a cocktail and hors d'oeuvres engagement party for my daughter with 50 guests. I love to make appetizers but making fancy little appies was new territory for me. I spent weeks experimenting with different recipes and the whole week before the party making ones that I could freeze. I also never made cocktails before and served up bellinis and crantinis. It just about killed me but the party was a huge success. Too many to mention but the most memorable was making a butternut squash ravioli using won ton skins for company. I made them during the day stacking them on a platter. When it was time to cook them, they were all stuck together into a blob. It was a disaster.