I'm 32 years old and since moving out on my own, I've made it a personal goal to be a really great cook. I'm really not a fan of eating out so much. I love to try new recipes and a variety of ethnic cuisines. I say that I'm a beginner cook because, although I've made desserts through the years and a lot of side dishes, now I'm learning how to pull a complete meal together from start to finish! I love to cook desserts - congo bars (blonde brownies), pound cakes, coconut pies. (I like making them more than I like eating them!) I also love to cook pasta dishes and Latin American food. Soups fascinate me! My mom makes really good Southern cuisine. When everybody comes home for the holidays or a weekend, she will make a special dinner, usually the meal will be in honor of whomever has been away the longest. She also makes wonderful comfort foods like soup, or beans, or pot roast, but one of my favorite meals is neck bones with rice and gravy or neck bone soup. Don't knock it until you've tried it, but the neck bones have to be seasoned just right. Every year I make a sour cream pound cake for my family. I'm also excited that I'm finally getting the hang of making homemade tortillas. When I was really little, I used to love to watch my mom bake desserts. I never understood the concept of how to make cakes chocolate, but I did understand that I needed eggs, and vanilla extract, and other ingredients to make a cake. One day while my mom was putting laundry on the line, I made a "chocolate cake" using dirt instead of cocoa. I was just looking for some way to make the cake brown. Needless to say that day marked my first real lesson on baking cakes. I was only 5. :-)