I grew up in a home with both parents and 10 siblings. Not all at once of course, some of my older siblings had left home, etc by the time I came around. But my love of cooking came from my mom always making great food and her appreciation for using what we had and improvising. Just the joy of sitting around the table and eating what she had prepared with what she had and all of us partaking, is to this day- one of my fondest memories. Thanks Mom! Mexican food, trying out new vege dishes and basically anything new that makes a beautiful presentation dish. I love sharing food with others and seeing them enjoy it! And my new favorite to cook...poached eggs-the old fashioned way! Thanksgiving dressing, homemade flour tortillas, sugar cookies, where do I begin? It was fun learning to cook as a child and then trying different recipes when my husband and I got married but when I had kids that's when it really became a totally new experience. I started the tradition of making different shaped iced sugar cookies for their school parties, etc. and would even put kids names on them. They were always a big hit! To this day, 3 of my best friends came from a sugar cookie encounter. Different recipes had to be introduced with more veges for the kids, creative casseroles that would hide some of the veges they wouldn't eat and so on. Now both are vegetarians, go figure. So now, I have to get creative and try more recipes with veges in them. LOL But the basics remain, like crockpot recipes, pot roast, enchiladas (now my version of vegetarian) and our house favorite...mom's flour tortillas. YUM making popovers in 1979... have not made them since cause they were such a disaster that I am scared to try them again. We didn't have very much,so throwing out ingredients in a messed up trial recipe was hard to do. But after they were such a flop, I had to throw them out. I had never actually ruined a recipe before so that was hard to do.