I'm in my late-20's and just getting into my cooking rhythm. My mom is an incredible cook who taught herself everything but I was never all that interested in cooking. So now I'm trying to make up for lost time and glean all those fantastic recipes from her to share with my own kids some day. I'm rather willing to try preparing just about anything but since I'm still learning I usually stick to pasta, do some simple baking and am slowly working my way up to roasts and things like that. Of course with just my husband and I at home, it would take us a while to get through all that food! I have really fond memories of growing up and helping my mom prepare big meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas with tons of family coming and going... Now a tradition with my husband is grilling during the weekends with some juicy steaks, homemade fries or big sweet potatoes and a fresh garden salad with our own vinaigrette. I'm finally getting over the fear of measuring out everything exactly :-) I've often been one who would follow a recipe completely and then in the end know that if I had followed my instinct it could have turned out better. But trusting yourself comes with experience and I'm building that up too... Hmmm....I was baking pumpkin pies one Christmas and set the pie plate on a hot burner. The crust was in already when I set it down and when I started pouring the filling it, the glass plate exploded all over the kitchen. There were shards in the wall and everything.