I am a stay at home working a full time job mother of one boy who is 3 1/2. He is my taste tester along with my husband and my father most of the time. After we remodeled our kitchen and got top notch appliances my passion for cooking became stronger than ever. I love to cook and try new recipes all the time. If they are not a success I put a big red "X" next to it and know not to make that one again. Every recipe that is a huge success I write down and keep it in a notebook. I try to tweek recipes a bit here and there to give it a twist all of my own. I have become a big fan of risotto. I also love Italian food so anything Italian is always a big hit in my house!! I use to love to cook with my mother. I believe that is where I got my passion from. When she died I lost that passion for a few months and then realized that I had one of her many cookbooks and started cooking out of that. I was brought up with the importance of a family siting at the table and eatting a meal together. I want to give my son that same value that my mother instilled in my sisters and I. Getting used to my new convection oven. It was much harder than I ever thought it was going to be. Here is one for the books... not the house that we are in now but our first house we had bought a new stove. I was in my early 20's & thought that the bottom drawer on the oven was just like the one that was at my parents house...a storage drawer. Wrong! I had put a roast together & put it in the oven according to the recipe. I went into the room to watch tv with my now husband & 10 minutes later there was black smoke coming into the room. We both ran into the kitchen & the new stove (the inside) was on fire. Huge flames. He opened the door & threw the roasting dish in the sink & we realized that the flames did not go out. He pushed me out of the house & then opened up the bottom drawer on the stove...it was not storage it was the broiler (i did not know what that was at the time) & my wood cutting board was on fire. He threw it out the door and past my head. We were both in disbelief. The roast smelled and tasted like burnt wood and so did everything else!!!