The time I spent learning to really cook well was spent feeding a family of 7 kids. I cook in HUGE quantities, which makes everyone laugh hysterically when they realize I hate leftovers. ;) Homemade bread, cupcakes, and homemade lasagna, from the noodles up, are probably my 3 loves in the kitchen. All of our family traditions center around cooking. Not simply food but the actual act of cooking. Spending a day relaxing and making a delicious bolognese sauce in a huge pot. All of us sitting around the kitchen table, cranking Christmas music and making tamales by the truck load. We cook together. Well, probably converting my spaghetti hating daughter into a bolognese master. Or I'd have to go with the tenacity I had of cooking recipe after recipe of Fish until finding something that our fish hating family would eat, or killing their taste buds to the point where I get calls of "Mom, can you make fish tonight?" The epic story of the ribs and the cheesecake is my cooking tragedy! We were having a BBQ and I was making the ribs ahead of time in the oven. At the same time I was making homemade cheesecake. Never even considering the dire consequences, I put them both into the oven at the same time since I was rushed. (But I did think enough to put the cheesecake on the top rack so the ribs couldn't drip into it!!) To this day, everyone still laughs (Hysterically) at the BBQ flavored cheesecake.