I am obsessed with my kitchen. It is never totally clean because I am always using it! I bake daily, and cook almost everything from scratch. If I used canned goods, I prefer having canned it myself. I am constantly looking up, tweaking, and experimenting with recipes. I love to have a big garden every year, and this is going to be the biggest. My husband is an avid hunter, so are privileged to have a lot of wild game around the house. Nothing like a meal that you grew and butchered yourself! I am considering culinary school, not to get employed as a chef, but just to learn new techniques. Potatoes, strangely. Like any good Irish girl, I am obsessed with them! Rarely does a dish go wrong that involves potatoes, and you can do anything with them. And BREAD! My true, undying passion is bread. It is a beautiful thing, alive and hearty and healthy and real. Nothing makes me happier than the smell, taste, feel of freshly baked bread. Heaven... Cooking IS a tradition nowadays. Growing up my family did not cook a lot, but I am changing that for my kids. Dinner at the table every night and breakfast from scratch about 4-5 days out of the week. My kids are already food snobs, and probably would starve after a week without home cooking, lol! I was making holiday dinner for the whole neighborhood. My turkey had spent 3 days in the fridge, but apparently the fridge was on the fritz, and the 20-lb bird was still frozen solid morning of. I had to par-steam it to get it to thaw, then put it in the oven stuffed with fruit and onion. I got rave reviews because the steam has made it so moist, and the stuffing made it so flavorful! What was a disaster waiting to happen turned into a gorgeous meal. Candy is totally beyond me! I am hopeless. Thermometer or not, I have never been able to create something that and be justifiably dubbed as candy. The only thing I ever turn out is a sweet gooey mess. If there is a trick to it, I would love for someone to share it with me!