I love to cook! I collect cookbooks and actually enjoy reading cookbooks! I also love to play golf and spend time with my husband, our dog Ripley and my sweet little grandson. I enjoy cooking for others from the everyday spaghetti to elegant dinner parties for my family and friends. I also love to grill. Boneless Buffalo Wings are a favorite go-to recipe in a pinch. I also enjoy baking decadent desserts that include the unexpected ingredients. Probably like most I love Thanksgiving and the traditional recipes that we make year after year. I also love making my grandmother's homemade biscuits and my mom's dumplings. As a native from Louisiana, cajun food is always a great reminder of family traditions in our family - shrimp creole and seafood gumbo. I have gotten really good at taking a "ok" recipe and making it my own with my adjustments. I have also put together a cookbook for my church as a fundraiser and it turned out to be one of the best books I own and everyone raved about it and still does to this day. I purchased a cake from a local baker for my husband's 50th birthday a couple of years ago. It was a white cake with a strawberry cheesecake filling. I tried for over a year to replicate that recipe with one disaster after another. I recently ran into the retired baker and she gave me the uber-simple recipe...I almost put my head in the oven!!!