I LOVE to cook and I love the joy it brings others. I am trying to teach my 3 year old how to "cook" and boy, does it take patience! I am a "wing-it" kind of chef, using whatever ingredients I happen to have on hand, so it's fun to meet up with so many other cooks that "wing-it" too! Bread (all kinds!) and anything that involves getting my hands into dough! Christmas tree cookies from a 100 year-old recipe handed down from my grandmother. I have pictures of ME as a toddler trying to decorate these cookies in my high-chair. Now, I am getting the same pictures of MY little ones in their high-chairs attempting to decorate the Christmas trees! Homemade bread became a BIG hit in my home the first time I cooked it in 8th grade. I had many failures after that first success (I think I kept killing my yeast!) but I have learned much from each failure. Now I can whip up bread without much fuss (thanks to my heavy-duty KitchenAid). Shortly after I got married I made hamburgers from some ground beef. I didn't realize that they would shrink when they cooked, and I was trying to s-t-r-e-t-c-h our budget. We had my family over for dinner and the burgers cooked up to 2 1/2 inch circles! A lot of bun, not a lot of burger.