I'm a mother of five, and ran a daycare for over ten years, so I learned to be really creative when I cooked for the kids. My mom didn't cook very well, so I became quite adventurous when I moved out on my own. My husband comes from a completely different style of living and has really ingenious ways of preparing delicious meals. We love learning new cuisines together. My oldest daughter gives us authentic foods from a different ethnicity every year for Christmas, and we've have added many to our regular cooking. My husband cooks soups and stews made from wild game and seafood, and they are some of our favorites. I love to cook Thai, Asian and food from Spanish speaking countries south of the U.S, and anything that really hot and/or spicy. We're adventurous and invent recipes often. I'm a nut about sauces and have come up with some really tasty ones. My husband's and my most favorite cooking tradition is NOT cooking like our mothers! They were bland and boring cooks, and neither have ever wanted to try our ethnic cuisine. OUR kids will eat just about anything. Sice we don't cook like our moms, we're starting our own traditions. Soup, stew or chili on a cold day, fresh grown salads and vegetables in the summer. The kids all expect it when they visit. On each person's birthday, they can pick their own dishes, regardless of whether they really go together. Sauces! The best seafood sauce in the world came up when I didn't have any (boring) tartar sauce. The best salsa came from a combination of my daughter's gift of authentic Mexican food and trying to use only vegetables we grew in our garden. Gravy! It's the one sauce I haven't mastered. No one will ever let me make gravy again, ever! One Thanksgiving, with a houseful of family (they're the worst ones to fail in front of!) I forgot to turn on the electric burner, and we all waited for about twenty minutes while the food got cold for the gravy to thicken before someone figured it out. Another time, it tasted like pase. Other times, it was thin, burnt, lumpy, whatever else could go wrong. The last heroic attempt was so salty from the bouillon I used, no one could eat it. So, I'm officially off the books for gravy.