I've been lucky to have lived in a few different places throughout the US, so I've been fortunate to try many different foods and see how people eat. I've been living in the south for a few years and I am seriously missing all the great foods I grew up on "back east" and that I got to experience living in California. I just haven't embraced southern foods (too heavy and too much frying) and it's also hard to get really great seafood being in a landlocked state. I'd love to think of myself as an expert cook, but there are so many things I learn each day when I cook or bake that I think I still have a long way to go to consider myself an expert. I love to cook and bake for my family. I used to hate baking, I didn't have the patience for it, but over the past 5 or 6 years I've really enjoyed it. I love cooking, especially on the weekends, where I put more effort into my dishes because I have the time for it. I also find it extremely important to feed my family healthy foods. I'm lucky that my son is not a picky eater and loves to eat anything healthy. I love (and prefer) to cook and bake from scratch. I like to know what goes into my food and I can control ingredients and make any necessary changes. I also love how foods taste when they are made from scratch. I stay away from processed foods as much as possible and really pay attention to ingredients, like staying away from anything with added corn syrup. I also try and make my own international dishes. Trying to create my own recipes and being thrilled when they turn out well. I have a bad habit of sticking things under the broiler and forgetting I am broiling something until black smoke comes billowing out - but no fires or anything terrible.