I'm 24 years old, living and working in St. Louis. I graduated with a Bachelor's degree from a university in my hometown, Jefferson City. I work as a real estate appraiser, but since I started seriously cooking, I dream to one day own my own sweets shop! It all started when I was about 6 years old, standing on a chair at the kitchen table, electric mixer in hand, making a cake... since then, cooking has become a passion! I have a wonderful boyfriend of 4 years and a spunky Siamese cat, Ashes. I love them both deeply, but they can drive me absolutely crazy! My absolute favorite thing to cook is any kind of dessert. I love to bake cakes, cookies, and cupcakes. I try to never cook the same dish twice in a month! I enjoy spicy dishes and Cajun style food. If I have a lot of time to kill, I like to make sushi rolls with lots of fillings! My mother makes the kind of food known fondly as "a home cooked meal." Lots of leftover bacon grease, fried chicken and pork chops, real mashed potatoes with tons of butter... very rich and very bad for you! But, it's always nice to visit and get treated to one of her meals, even if I have to work out on the treadmill extra hard the next day! She taught me the art of 'eyeballing' ingredients... I rarely follow directions... I'm always adding more ingredients to make a dish tastier! Lately, I've been branching out into cooking more extravagent meals. For Valentines Day, I made my first fabulous 'gourmet' meal... steaks wrapped in proscuitto with a merlot sauce, spiced shrimp, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus, and stuffed mushrooms. For the boyfriend's and my anniversary, I cooked horseradish encrusted steaks and crab stuffed mushrooms. I am most impressed with myself over the huge pot of gumbo I made for Mardi Gras one year... I picked ingredients from several different recipes and customized it for my taste! I have trouble cooking eggs over easy most days! And just a year ago, I had to find the correct way to boil an egg! But the dish that came out the worst of all was the King Cake I made a few Mardi Gras' ago.. it came out hard as a rock even though I followed the instructions! Needless to say, I've shied away from making anything that requires yeast.