I love to recreate favorite dishes from restaurants we've tried, especially Hawaiian Regional Cuisine, Thai, Mexican, Chinese, Italian and all American comfort foods. I don't mind using shortcut ingredients like prepared sauces, broth, seasoning mixes and the like...the end results are what's key for this completely self-taught cook! My grandmother was a fantastic baker, with great memories of her wonderful 'from scratch' pies, cakes, Christmas cookies and more. My step-Mom's family is Genovese, have owned several area restaurants and allowed me to expand my culinary horizons to include homemade ravioli, minestrone, spaghetti 'gravy', garden fresh pesto and much much more. I'll always have fond memories of my Dad's wonderful grilled meats and his simply wonderful barrel-smoked spareribs...the perfect Summer's meal. Teaching myself to cook...mostly out of necessity as a hungry 19 year old college student. Betty Crocker and Joy of Cooking both came in handy since this was cooking-by-the-seat-of-my-pants school. And all those extra taste buds (about 20% more than average) that made new foods so yucky as a very picky toddler? I find they come in super handy in re-created favorite restaurant dishes. Usually only takes 1 or 2 tries to get it right ;-) Brownies! I can never get the centers cooked through without drying out and over-doing the rest...Pie crust, unless it's the near goof-proof pat in kind. Folding in egg whites...much too heavy-handed I'm afraid.