I grew up at my Grandmother's knee learning how to cook. I was making family meals by the age of 10 and have always enjoyed preparing food. As a child I would often watch Julia Child, Justin Wilson or the Galloping Gourmet as opposed to cartoons.Preparing and cooking food has always and will always be a major part of my life. I love comfort food. Pot roast, soups, mac-n-cheese, pork chops, etc. As my Grandmother was of German descent and from the mid-west I grew up with that type of cooking and had to adapt to the "southern style" of North Carolina as I grew older. I love to cook fried chicken, greens, biscuits and all other foods associated with the south. Of all occasions Thanksgiving is the one I most associate with cooking traditions. There must be turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce and homemade bread. Whew! Getting hungry just thinking about it. As a child my favorite tradition was on my birthday when my Grandmother and I would make Swedish meatballs and cheese fondue for the occasion. My husband, son and I make it a habit to have surf and turf for Christmas every year. My latest triumph was this past Christmas dinner. My husband gave me a new char grill for my birthday complete with rotisserie so I decided to do my prime rib on the grill. It was wondeful! I went about 20 minutes per pound as my family likes their beef a little more done than I do. I made crabcakes from lump crab meat and little filler, wrapped shrimp and oysters in bacon and baked them off, baked potatoes, brussel sprouts and crescent rolls. We ate 'till we popped. Geez! I've only got 1000 characters here! The biggest one that comes to mind is cubed steak in the pressure cooker. I love cubed steak but my husband says it can be tough so I decided to try cooking it in my pressure cooker. Big mistake. I loaded about 8-10 peices into the pot, added my spices and let it rip. We had company coming for dinner that night so I wanted everything to be nice. Much to my surprise when I cooled down the pot and opened the lid all the cube steak had disappeared. There was one lonely little piece at the bottom of the pot. The rest of it had cooked away. Not a good thing with company coming. I think I went to plan B and made pasta.