When I was a little girl I loved watching my mom cook. I started cooking when I was 9 or 10 years old. I also love to read. My favorite chefs are Jamie Oliver, Ming Tsai, Mario Batali, Rachel Ray, Giada de Laurentiis, Sara Moulton, Nigella Lawson and Tyler Florence. Cooking is my calming agent. It's like meditation, where everything just stops... No matter how tired I am from work, no matter how bad my day is, once I started cooking everything is forgotten and forgiven. I love to see people enjoy the dishes I prepare, it is my greatest reward. Since I am a Filipino, Filipino dishes would be at the top of my list. But I'm a big fan of Italian, Spanish and Oriental dishes. I love pasta dishes, from the simple spaghetti with meat sauce to authentic Italian. I also love Chinese and Japanese. Grilled meat and vegetables are my favorites too. Philippines is rich in traditions. Fiestas are a big deal to us. Whenever we celebrate our town fiesta, we would have family gatherings in our home, Christmas, New Years Eve and birthdays too. Even Sundays. I guess I could say that cooking is a big part of my family. Food has a big influence in our family. Most of the time it is a focal point of conversation among family members. We enjoy cooking together. I have 4 brothers and 1 sister, they too love to cook. I once cook the whole menu for our Christmas celebration. And everybody loved it! But I was dead beat afterwards. My husband hates anything with curry. He used to work in Maldives and UAE and he just got tired of dishes with curry. But I wanted so much to try this asparagus dish with curry, cumin and tumeric, so I did. But my husband hated it.