I'm a 23-year-old stay-at-home girlfriend who's working to make good food for the person I care about most and my family while still producing art to sell in the local shops. I enjoy expanding my horizons culturally - especially when it comes to that Japanese culture. My personal favorite dish of mine is my Hibachi Chicken Teriyaki with Hibachi Vegetables and home made fried rice. After that, I'd have to say Egg Udon (Japanese noodles). There's just something fun about making all the sauces myself and rolling the noodles. When I was growing up, we primarily ate what I call "Boxed Food". (Probably why I like to cook home made stuff now . . .) But my mom makes a wonderful "Boo Cake" for Halloween (it's horrible for you, but tastes oh so good) and Seven Layer Cookies to die for during the Christmas season. Though her meatloaf recipe is very simple, it's been passed down many many years and I crave it frequently. Triumphs? I can think of a few. . . the day I called in sick from work to spend 6 hours rolling Udon noodles for Golden Week (Japanese Holiday) was quite an accomplishment. It was nice to see smiles on my friend's faces when they started eating the meal I had slaved for 10+ hours over. After that, probably the first time I made cookies, even though they tasted like crackers! I wanted to make cookies for some special occasion that I can't remember and I wanted to make them from scratch. So, I found a recipe somewhere and, no matter what I tried, I couldn't get the dough to stick together. It kept crumbling. I tried adding this and that but nothing helped. So I persevered and cooked them anyways. They tasted like unsalted, lumpy crackers. Even then, I was still proud. ^_^;