I come from a family of great cooks. My Dad used to come home from traveling and cook up whatever he'd enjoyed in another country -- Brazilian food, Italian, French. I came home from school one day and the kitchen was festooned in fresh pasta hanging from ski poles he was using for drying racks. My mom is a good cook too but my Dad is more outrageous. I love soups all winter long, anything braised and cooked for a good long time, preferably in a crock pot. I love to bake and use it as therapy. I have experimented to find the best chocolate chip cookie -- thank you Wendy and the best chocolate cake -- thank you Bon Appetit. I like a quest. We're not big on repeating things and try a lot of new recipes. Ingredients are a lot more important than recipes although the Silver Palate is a tradition in our family. We all love it and have used it over and over again since it was first printed. And of course The Joy of Cooking. Serving a delicious dinner to my future father-in-law 15 years ago and being so glad I could welcome him with a nice meal on that rainy, cold Seattle night. It was the beginning of many great things. My sister and I made a ground nut stew (peanut) out of the newspaper. It tasted like Jiff and undercooked vegetables. We had no cash on hand and had to ask our guests to pay for the pizza we ended up ordering. Very classy. I also made fudge at my in-laws house that tasted like it had sand in it.