I am a new mother of a 4 month old boy who loves to cook. One of my favorite hobbies is entertaining and cooking for a group. In college, my friends and I use used to have a biweekly rotating supper club where we all tried to one up each other. With a new baby in the house, I haven't gotten to cook as much as I like, so my husband and I wait until he goes to sleep and then stay up and cook :) I love to bake. Cookies and cakes and pies. The only drawback is that when I am cooking, I just throw handfuls of things in, and it comes out great, but baking doesn't quite work that way. I love making spicy food, like curries and tacos. My mom was married twice - to my father, who is from Pakistan, and then my stepfather, who is Mexican, so she learned both cuisines quite well, and passed them on to me. My mother's family is American, and my grandmother was great at old fashioned American comfort food. I love Thanksgiving, because my grandma and mother and I would always start baking pies a week in advance. My family would literally have 15 pies! Out of all three daughters, I am the one who is carrying on the tradition. Last Valentine's Day, I was pregnant and not feeling very sexy or like dressing up, so my husband and I stayed in for dinner. I made a roast chicken and mashed potatoes and homemade rolls, and he said it was the best dinner he ever had! Also, my first Thanksgiving turkey was fabulous (I had challenged my mom because my sisters said hers was always a touch dry!) One year, I asked my sister what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. She said lemon, and I was so obsessed with it not being dry, that I used every trick I had heard of to keep a cake moist. It was way TOO MOIST, and I ended up having to crumble it and make a trifle with vanilla pudding and raspberries. When we got to my sisters house, she said, "Where's my cake?". Also, one year, I decided for mother's day, I would make my mom her favorite meal -- one that she usually has to cook herself for all of us. It consists of spicy shredded pork, rice pilaf, and potato fritters. I was stressed and sweaty to make one of my mom's signature dishes, and when I went to fry the fritters, they would not stay together and I ended up with something resembling fried mashed potatoes.