Cooking is soothing and comforting to me. I enjoy cooking and baking; I love sharing my dishes with others around me for them to enjoy also. It seems to make people smile more! I guess my greatest cooking influence was my mom. When I was growing up she would let me pretty much hatch up whatever recipe I came across. She had a mixer set up at my play table where I could stand in front of it and make the cakes for my family of which I was the youngest of five siblings. I don't remember many of them cooking.. only me, but they were all pretty much older than I (anywhere from 5 to 15 years my senior). My favorite times to cook are football Sundays, holidays with family, potlucks at church, and cooking for 'food days' and birthdays/occasions at work. I love making big batches of comfort food. Now I also like cooking and baking with my daughters. They're 15 years old and really getting into helping Mom bake cookies, make soups and stews, and whatever else we may think of d Growing up my favorite things to cook were cookies, cakes and casseroles.. sometimes surprise meatballs (hiding mushrooms, onion, or whatever inside) and smothering with gravies and sauces. These days I like casseroles still, but also more difficult items such as hard candies at the holidays, new and different vegetable recipes, more poultry dishes with different seasonings and spices, and of course I still fall back on my old favorites like chicken and dumplings, chicken noodle soup, beef vegetable stew, ham & beans, sauerkraut and ribs, cornbreads, yeast rolls and yummy desserts. Sometimes when I serve to my extended family my take today on Chicken and Dumplings and Ham & Beans, they're pleasantly surprised at the additions I've made to the way my mom made it when we were growing up. But they and my parents like the new recipes.. I do share the dishes with my parents frequently as they are growing older and I like to help them out so they don't have to cook and work as hard now. My siblings and I take turns having Thanksgiving and Easter at our homes for the family. Sitting around after dinner usually includes telling some of the good old tales from the past of food fights between my sister and I, Christmases that were so loud we prayed for the family to go home, and yet the Christmases that were quiet sometimes seemed to have so much missing from them. Our first Thanksgiving at our new home in 2001 was great. All the standards, a few new recipes thrown in, cozy atmosphere, my parents and close family in attendance, and a nice fire in the fireplace to warm us all up. Everything turned out just perfect.. the turkey, the stuffing (in some ways), the new beautiful veggies, the desserts. Perfect! I'd say it was my very first Thanksgiving dinner at our house about 9 years ago. It was my first big turkey and really the first time I attempted to make (Mom's) stuffing from scratch. My mistake was I made the packaged cornbread (which I love) and used it for my stuffing which of course made it sweet. Bad news! They were nice about it, but my Mom, Dad, aunt, sister, all didn't like it. I should have made regular old fashioned cornmeal cornbread for the stuffing. I did learn from the one!