I am a 44-year old mother of three awesome kids (ages 23, 22 & 20). My oldest daughter is married to the most wonderful young man we could ever want for a son-in-law and living a very blessed life. My 22-yr old girl is finishing her 3rd year at the Maryland Instutute College of Art in Baltimore. My 20-yr old son is a corporal in the Marine Corp currently serving in Afghanistan. I miss them all like crazy! I've been married for almost 25 years to the most incredible husband in the world. I've lived all my life in the Bay Area but spent four years (2003-2007) in rural Kentucky. I love country life!! We are now back in the Bay Area and very much looking forward to returning to Kentucky when we retire. I love to cook just about everything, though I'm not too big on sweets and deserts. Our favorite meats are lamb, chicken, salmon and a good ribeye. We almost never eat pork and we seem to eat beef less and less these days. I've been trying to cook a lot healthier foods lately and try to choose organic and kosher ingredients as much as possible. I've recently discovered a passion for classic Italian and Mediterranean cooking. I've been scouring Amazon for the best cookbooks in that area and can't seem to stop collecting them! I absolutely love that cuisine! Garlic, basil & rosemary are my favorite herbs to cook with. I love cooking with garden fresh veggies and I go through a lot of olive oil in my kitchen. My favorite cooking tradition in our home is that on Thanksgiving and Christmas the women do all the cooking and the men do all the cleaning up, no exceptions! My greatest triumph is a pasta salad recipe I created that people always rave about and they always beg me for the recipe. But I've yet to share the recipe with anyone outside the family. I've been told by nearly everyone who tries it that it is the best pasta salad they've ever eaten. Around here, the leftovers get eaten for breakfast, lunch and supper until they are all gone, lol. I guess I'm waiting for a big pasta salad contest to come along and make me rich and famous before I share it, LOL. If and when I do decide to share it, I'll share it here first! When we first got married I tried to make a pot of pinto beans like my mother-in-law did (one of my husband's favorite things). She told me the recipe, which called for bacon. Instead of putting the raw bacon in the pot (which she just assumed I would know to do), I fried and crumbled it in. Needless to say the beans were terrible. We didn't have a garbage disposal then and I didn't know what to do with that huge pot of beans so I just set it outside the back door (it never occured to me to flush it down the toilet). It wasn't long before they stunk up the whole backyard! I finally dug a hole and burried them. I eventually did learn to make beans as good as Mama but we've never forgotten that first horrible attempt!