I'm a work-at-home mom with a great man who loves my cooking, 3 awesome kids who are somewhat finicky (hey they're kids), and 2 little dogs that will do anything for a bite of whatever I'm cooking. Anything new that sounds or looks delicious. We eat dinner at the table as a family at least 4 nights of the week. I'm glad to be able to do that for my family. My Thanksgiving 2007 was a total 100% success!! We brined the turkey and it was the best turkey ever. Time-consuming and a little laborious but totally worth it. I got big compliments. The first time we made tamales we didn't pay attention and all the water boiled out of the pot while tamales were steaming. The pot turned black. I yelled for my husband, he quickly moved the pot from stove to countertop, burned the countertop that ended up costing $2000 to replace which was delivered the wrong size, then broken in half by accident returned to the shop to resize, so that was all a disaster in itself. A few months later, we sold that house and built a new one and were still paying the bill on that countertop. Needless to say, those were some expensive tamales and the thought of tamales makes me cringe.