I am a former executive chef who is now returning to school to become a nurse. I still love to cook, but now only friends and the love of my life get to partake of my creations. I have a beautiful 19 year old daughter named Jessica. I also enjoy playing my guitar and singing. I don't really have a favorite dish to cook per se...but what I really enjoy is to be asked "What's for dinner?"....at 5:45PM. I then take stock of what I have in the pantry and proceed with the challenge of producing a simple yet elegant and delicious meal within 30 to 45 minutes. I am almost always successful at this, but I have had a few memorable failures. C'est la vive! Sicilian Christmas. Tons of bacala and other seafoods until midnight....and then it's a meat fest until dawn! All sorts of great cookies too. Pizzelles...sesame cookies...almond biscotti....I love the Christmas cooking traditions that my family used to have. All but my sister and I have since passed, so I don't get to do that Xmas thing anymore I think my greatest triumph was single-handedly catering three corporate Christmas parties at the bistro I was a chef at. My two sous chefs were M.I.A. and I had to prep, cook, and serve three parties of 25..42..and 50 respectively, with only 90 minutes between the parties to clean up, break down and reset the buffet for each party. I pulled it off and the owner gave my a $750 cash bonus at the end of the night...pretty cool. The first day I ran the new BBQ pit we had installed, I grossly underestimated the time to smoke sixty 18 pound turkeys that were to be delivered to customers for their Thanksgiving day orders. I ended up having to delay all of those customer dinners by 3 hours. The people were pissed at first, but came in and called after the holiday to compliment me on how well everything tasted, and to thank me for eating half of the costs they had paid for the turkeys in an effort to try to make up for their inconvenience.