I have been getting recipes from allrecipes for years, but I never joined and wrote a blog until now. I read other user blogs and registered this morning. My oldest daughter is an executive chef here in St. Louis. She says she got her love of cooking from me, and I really love to cook. I find it relaxing and fullfilling. I am also lucky to have a husband who loves to eat and says everything I cook is great. I disagree, I have "keepers" and a few "throw this one away." My grandparents were from Italy so this is a favorite. I also love Indian, Vietnamese, Thai and Mexican. I cook all of the above. My in-laws were Polish and my husband cooks a few Polish dishes as well. This has to be chestnut dressing for Thanksgiving. It is a recipe from my grandma and is an Italian tradition. Every New Years Eve I have a formal sit down gourmet dinner for 13 friends. We have been doing this for years. I just make sure to drink no wine until all the courses are served and then I can relax. We also enjoy cooking theme parties, on one occasion we did Italian and the guests came dressed in costume. One friend was a pretend Italian mob head and acted and dressed accordingly. He was so realistic he scared me! We had 8 friends from Belgium visiting. They do not celebrate Thanksgiving so we decided to do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of summer. I made a pumpkin pie and left it to cool, pushed back on the kitchen counter. I left the house to buy some candles and came back to find the entire center of the pie hollowed out by our dog!