I'm a professionaly trained chef in the French tradition. I have some pastry training but really enjoy preparing savory foods better. I am married have 3 grown children, 1 grandchild and my dog Wendel. As well as preparing wonderful food I love the presentation of food and at this point in time most of my cookbooks are with pictures and more about the presentation of the food rather than the recipes. I've interegrated many cultural aspects into my food from the various places my husband and I have traveled to: France both Paris and Provence, the Carribean, Hawaii, Southern cuisine, England, Ireland and others. I love cooking French style food but also love to experiment with Italian, Mediterranean and I love to grill. I grew up with a grandmother, mother and aunts that all cooked, baked bread and canned vegetables, tomatoes etc. One of my favorite traditions were the days my mom would bake homemade potato bread, cinnamon sticky buns and make spaghetti sauce to have for dinner. The bread recipe is my great grandmothers and I still make it to this day, so this is one of my favorite cooking traditions. I make a wonderful salmon dish with a lemon leek sauce that people rave over. I serve it over a purple rice (called Forbidden Rice)that has a nutty flavor to it. The dish is also fairly time friendly and is great for a sitdown dinner party. I was making spaghetti sauce and my neighbor had given me some peppers from his garden. They looked like ordinary bananna peppers to me so I put about 5 into my sauce diced very fine. When my guests sat down to dinner and everyone took a mouthful of pasta people literally threw down their forks and grabbed their drink glasses. Turns out the peppers were extremely hot and the sauce was practically inedible. I thought it was pretty funny as we all sat there with watering eyes and runny noses.