I come from a Euro-Asian background. My mother cooked many types of food, and I learned from her how to make things by taste. She makes the best spaghetti sauce for not being Italian, and her tacos are better than the Mexican resturants in town. Most people think I am a very good cook, I credit my mother for this, for she taught me all I know. My favorite things to cook have changed over the years. I love cooking all types of food. Now however I am learning to make Syrian dishes from my husband and his sister. Every New Years eve, we would make omochi-Japanese rice cakes. My mom has this neat machine that takes the rice, cooks it, and then kneads it into a ball. We take the hot mixutre and make rice balls, or spread it onto a flat pan. Our hands would get so so hot, but my sisters and I had great fun doing this. I miss those times now, hopefully we will have them again. When I can cook as well or better than my mom.. that would be a triumph for me. I doubt I would make it. I learned that I cannot bake pies. One Thanksgiving I decided to make a Boston Creme & a Lemon Merigine pie. Well, to look at them they looked beautiful, to cut them was a wreck. Instead of setting both filling were like liquid. I never baked a pie since, I buy them from the frozen section or the store bakery now.