I'm from the Dominican Republic (Caribbean) and I consider myself an "accidental cook". Never cared to learn how to cook until I was around 15 yrs old and had to learn to cook my favorite dish... Dominican Spaghetti... I could live on the stuff if it wouldn't go to my hips. After I got married a few years later I had to learn how to properly cook by necessity since my husband wouldn't even know how to start an oven. Then I started my family (3 daughters) and enjoyed being a fulltime homemaker especiall the cooking part, I LOVE IT. I have tried recipes from what I remember watching our cooks back at home. I've had to adapt my recipes now that I live in the US and can't find everything that we use down there and it's turned out pretty good, people actually like my food! yay! I've used a lot of cookbooks and collect them as well.. but now with the magic of the internet my computer is mostly by my kitchen counter so I can look at recipes here and other places! Long live the internet! Pasta!!! Lasagna... my Dominican food: Rice, beans, tostones and chicken...for me I replace the chicken with eggplant (I make a terrific eggplant dish!) Main holidays like Thanksgving and Christmas, my daughters and I share the cooking... a couple of them seem to like to cook certain dishes and I let them go at it... it's a good legacy to leave... the fact that they like to cook for others even if it's only during the holidays... for now. I make a killer lasagna! I finally learned to make Pan de Agua... Water bread, a very simple bread that is a main tradition in the Dominican home to eat at least once a day, usually during breakfast or dinners. I'm still trying to learn to make glutten (fake meat)...haven't had any success yet...