I'm a busy mom to six children: my four and my fiance's two. I work as a home health nurse and since I'm so busy, cooking and baking is my easily justifiable hobby...hey, we've got to eat! Baking tops my list. I love to make muffins, biscuits, pancakes or sweetbreads on the weekends when our kids are with us. When Thanksgiving rolls around I relish making homemade pies complete with homemade crust. When I have extra time I love to make from scratch cakes, cheesecake, tiramisu and cookies. I also love to make soup, crockpot meals and pasta dishes. When I was growing up my mom always made a pot of homemade soup every week once weather got cool and I've carried that on with my family as well. Nothing says comfort food or fall to me like a bowl of steaming soup. I also learned how to bake from my mom...my grandmother shared her love of baking with my mom who in turn shared it with me...now I try to share that with my own children. I made a 3 tiered wedding cake covered with rolled fondant in sweltering August heat with no air conditioning! It came out beautifully but I never got a photo and lost track of the bride and groom shortly after they married. But every Thanksgiving is a triumph to me...I cook for at least a dozen people and make everything from scratch. When I was married the first time I had many tragedies. I had an oven with a self timer and one Sunday I put a leg of lamb in to cook while I was at church. We were having my grandparents over for dinner that day and I saw them very infrequently. My grandmother is also an Italian that cooks amazingly well so the pressure was on. Of course, when I got home I found that the self timer never kicked in and the lamb was raw. To make matters worse, this happened AGAIN a few months later with another elderly woman that I admired as well. Needless to say,, I don't use self timers anymore!