I grew up in a very non-traditional family by todays standards. My mother worked during while my dad stayed home to raise me and my older sister. He did all of the typical "woman's" work like cooking, gardening, cleaning, laundry. It was a very grass-roots upbringing - we raised chickens and rabbits for meat, and grew everything a Wisconsin climate allows. Just about anything we ate was made from sratch. We made bread every week, noodles were never from a box, and jelly jars came from the cellar with the previous year on the lid in permanent marker. Who needs video games when there are things to cook? Green beans - one of those foods my dad grew in the garden. We always grew too much and ate them 3-4 times a week, but somehow I never got sick of them. My family is nearly all German, so Christmas just isn't right without Pfeffernuse. I promise to upload the recipe one of these days! I made my husband(then he was just a boyfriend) a black-raspberry pie. I started out picking the berries just to munch on them, but got the idea to make a pie. Well it turned out to be WAY more work than I thought. I found a recipe in an Amish cookbook that my Dad had, which required over 4 cups of berries. Over two hours later (black-raspberries are little!), I made my Mom's awesome crust all by myself. I was nervous to try it, who knew what I could have messed up. But it was seriously AMAZING, and gone before the end of the night :)