I am a retired RN Director of Surgical Services and I always loved to cook. After an early retirement I took a professional culinary program at the Westlake Culinary Institute and published a recipe organizer/personal cookbook called the Table One collection. I have my own website prosebooks.com where I sell the book, post recipes, write restaurant reviews and submit articles on different culinary topics. I love to cook just about anything but I since I am not a big sweet eater I also am not a baker or dessert maker. I find that I need....I repeat.... I need to be in the kitchen chopping something to be happy. I love soups both cold and hot and I do like to add spice to any meal. I can honestly say I don't have a lot of family cooking traditions. What I do like to do is challenge myself and try a new recipe that I would normally be afraid to cook. That's my tradition. Try something new and different. There are so many. A few I can think of right now are puff pastry, a Hungarian potato bread, Beef Wellington, Vietnamese Beef Pho, and Won Ton soup. I had a cooking tragedy just last week. I am embarassed. I was making zabaione which is the easiest thing in the world to make and instead of using the egg yols per the recipe I completely zoned out and used the egg whites. Duh!