I was born in rural Alaska in the mid 50's, and with the exception of 1.5 years in Arizona a few years ago, have lived here all of my life. I now live in Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, but my home town is not far away, but I only go there in the summer becuase of the snow and icy roads in winter. I love to cook mexican, italian and occasionally oriental food. My favorite things to cook though are deserts. My favorite cooking traditions are handed down from my parents, and grandparents, and being from Alaska has greatly influenced these traditions, since we have sources of wild foods, such as salmon, halibut, and crab, along with moose and caribou. My parents raised us knowing how to care for wild meats smoking and canning salmon, which comes also from my native heritage as well. Cream pies and sauces - I was a cake decorator professionally for many years, i truely love doing this, not only creating a food product, but this also allows me to feed my creative spirit! Fruit pies...I finally did get the hang of making apple pie from scratch, but there were many tragedies involved in learning just to make an "average" apple pie. Cream Pies though! One of my best things!