My name is Ris (pronounced like the peanut butter cup) and I'm a cookbook lovin' mama from Northern California. I work for Kohl's, and even though I run the jewelry department I love walking through our kitchen department, especially since we now carry the full line of Food Network products and the FN magazine... Many a boring shift has been spent flipping through those pages! I love to bake, since I used to manage a bakery. There's just something about the smell of freshly baked cookies that makes me sooo happy. When I'm not baking I like to make up recipes for my slow cooker! My mother makes this AMAZING butternut squash soup at Christmas time. I finally asked her for the recipe, and I have turned it into the base for my southwest chicken and squash stoup. So yummy, and worth the wait. I saw an episode on the Food Network where Giada was making fried ravioli... it is now a favorite appetizer at dinner parties but it inspired me to create my own fried dish. It was a fried basket of crab meat, cream cheese, and peppers. Another huge hit, especially at football parties. I tried making a cheesy potato casserole once and it was so gross. The cream sauce turned out terribly. It was hot milk with chunks of flour and curdled looking cheese over potato slices... ugh. I'll stick to baking a stir fry.