I've been cooking since I was old enough to stand on a chair and help my Mom and grandma. I'm married with 3 grown children. Only 1 of whom still lives in our home town. I'm the "mommie" to the cutest Golden Retriever in the world and a sweet faced Boxer/St. Bernard mix. As an empty nester it's been difficult learning to cook for just my husband and me. Some things are meant to be made in volume! In that sense I am a reasonably new cook. I took up golf in the Summer of 2006. I really enjoy it. My husband has been a wonderful teacher. We are also very active members of our church. We thank God daily for all our blessings. What an Awesome God we have! I love baking cookies and cakes. Anything that has me in the kitchen with my Kitchenaide mixer is a fun thing. When the kids were little I would have Christmas cookie baking days. About a month before Christmas I would start compiling a list of cookies. I would send invitations to my neices and nephews. Each was asked to bring a specific ingredient. On cookie day they would show up about 8:00 A.M. with their contribution to the event (not much beats watching a terrible 2 yr. old not wanting to give up a dozen eggs.) We would bake all day giving the parents a chance to visit Santa and finish their shopping. Then the young'uns would be picked up around 4:00 P.M They would take home a tray of different cookies. It was fun. They are all grown but they still talk about it. I'm looking forward to Grand children and Great neices and nephews. One Easter my oven died with a 1/2 cooked ham still in it. I took the ham and wrapped it in foil and put it on the bbq grill. I baked potatoes in the microwave and hollowed them out. I mashed the insides and put it back in the skins. I topped them with cheese and put them on the grill to crisp up. I also steamed asparagus. We blessed the meal and most of the guests thought I had intended to prepare the meal in this fashion. My husband was impressed. :-) After 40+ years of cooking there have been too many "tragedies" to remember. I suppose the worst was when my 3 yr. old daughter wanted to pick berries and make a pie "like Mommie does" She made a beautiful pie with a little help. But, when I took it out of the oven and sat it on the stove burner, I accidently bumped the knob for that burner with my oven mit. She wanted to dig right in so I took her outside for some play time distraction. We returned to a smokey house and a scorched pie. Thank God I didn't burn the house down. Most recently was an incident with a new candy thermometer. Not being able to read the smaller numbers I nearly ruined an entire pan of fudge. Instead it became ice cream topping. Yummy!