Born and educated in Iowa, I moved to Illinois three years ago for work, and life has hit in full force since then! I've been married not quite two years, am learning how to make a house a home, and with our first baby here, things are sure to keep changing for a while. I love to feed my family well, it is a way I can love and nurture our home. Anything that keeps my sweet tooth happy. I also enjoy making black beans and rice - it is such a pretty dish to cook that I smile every time all the lovely colors come together in the pan! It is a very tasty and healthy dish. My family loves great food for the holidays. Now that all of us kids are grown, we take turns hosting Thanksgiving, and Christmas is always at our parents. The hostess is responsible for figuring out the menu (and the oven schedule), cooking the meat, and assigns the side dishes to the rest of the family. It takes a lot off the hosts, and making a dish or two doesn't take much effort at all. Thanksgiving, 2006, in our new home, I cooked a turkey to perfection for the first time ever. When I was around 10 years old, I thought that since peanut butter and oatmeal mixed well, and that oatmeal and hamburger did too (mom made meatloaf that way, right?) that the three together would make a great hot dish... Well, (predictably) not so much. :)