My family is mostly Italian so naturally I have been cooking since I was about 9, helping my mother in the kitchen. I don't really remember liking it, it was just something we did. When I moved out on my own my choices were eat pre-prepared food or eat the good stuff that I already knew how to make, and that is when I really began to love cooking. Now I am married and studying to be a dietitian, so I try to stick with healthier recipes, but have been known to make some sinful recipes every once in a while. I love to try new recipes of all ethnic backgrounds. I also really love to try making really unusual things or replicate foods I have tried. I once spent months tracking down first a recipe and then some malt powder just so I could make real old-fashioned boiled bagels because I missed the bagels that they make in Montreal. (It was worth it!) Every holiday in my family was spent preparing and then consuming a giant Italian meal. I think every woman in my family has her own cooking style and is really good. That means that every holiday there was one of many versions of delicious home made pasta, sauce, roast meat and vegetables. Now that I live so far from my family I try to keep the tradition going, although on a smaller scale with my own version of each of dish. I love to tackle a food I have never made by looking up a variety of recipes and learning more about it before actually starting the recipe. Some of my more recent ventures have included salt water taffy, canning peaches, jams, and a bing-cherry pie from scratch. (How had I not made a pie yet?) On my to do list is making fruit candy chews and home made vinegar. Ah, the tragedies! I don't think my husband or I will ever forget the first year that we were married and I tried to make a soup in the crock pot. We left to run an errand and came back to the worst smelling disaster ever. Broccoli does not belong in a soup in a crock pot!