I am a Georgia native. I was raised in Atlanta and I now live in Woodstock, GA. We have lived here for the last 30 years. I have always loved living in Northwest Georgia mainly because we have it all. I live in the foothills of the North Ga. mountains and the coast is about 6 hours away. We raised all of children(3) here and our grandchildren are growing up here. I love the fall in Ga. with all of the country fairs and beautiful fall leaves. And in the spring 'the hills are alive' with so much beauty. I love being with family and enjoying the holidays. I love to garden and I've really become interested in growing my own herbs for cooking. I definitely love cooking comfort foods. I really enjoy coming up with new desserts. I love the challenge of making my old recipes healthier. I have had to learn how to cook for two since becoming a empty-nester and I still end up with leftovers. I come from a big family and most of my recipes are for large groups. I love coming up with grilling recipes for my husband to cook. I love cooking casseroles, slow-cooker meals and cool desserts. I love cooking Italian and just 'plain ole southern country cookin'. My favorite traditions are centered around birthdays and holidays and football games. We are big UGA fans and there is a unbelieveable amount of tailgating foods going on in the fall. I get inspired to cook when the summer heat dies down and the cool air in the fall begins. My husband and I get together with our best friends and try to hit as many Outdoor Fall festivals as we can. All we do is walk around and eat and then we come home and cook up a great meal or sometimes we have dinner waiting on us in the crockpot. Thanksgiving Day is huge in our family. My mom and dad, my brothers and their families and all of my family get together that day and eat our Thanksgiving meal together. It takes us until Christmas to get over it because there is so much food and then we do it all over again at Christmas. We stretch the Christmas holiday out all month with family get-to-gethers with our church friends and extended family. I make a sinfully wonderful chocolate cheesecake that I use to sell. I make it for special holidays. I have come up with some really good recipes just by cooking with whatever was in the pantry. I find ways to use leftovers again in a new meal. My worst cooking nightmare was a recipe that I got out of a Gooseberry cookbook once. I love those cookbooks and I have never had any problems with any recipe from them, but this one time a crockpot chicken recipe called for nutmeg. It said to put in 1 Tablespoon of nutmeg. Now I thought that was alot for nutmeg but I trusted Gooseberry so much that I put in what they said. NEVER put in that much nutmeg on anything. I had to throw it all out. Our dog wouldn't even eat it and to this day I become nauseated when I smell nutmeg.