I am a graphic designer by trade, but if I could pursue any dream, it would be to open a little cafe/bakery, serving cookies, cakes, pies and pastries along with tea, coffee, and hot cocoa! Making the world a happier place, one calorie at a time! I've recently started making myself cook "real food," and particularly like to find new marinades for chicken and steak. My real passion is for baking sweet, unhealthy things though, especially cookies. I'm constantly trying out new cookie recipes, and only the very best get made again and again! I grew up in a small, friendly town where everyone knew everyone else. I especially loved baking cookies around Christmastime, when my parents would take plates of cookies and candy to all of their friends from church--and we always got lots in return! It was always a lot of fun to see the pleasure on people's faces when you showed up with a pretty goodie plate, and even more fun to sample the baking of the many excellent cooks in town! I often travel to England, where my boyfriend's family lives. Desserts that combine chocolate and peanut butter are not common there, so everyone there who tries it for the first time in the form of my peanut butter chocolate chip cookies goes nuts over them! They only problem is that now they practically won't let me make any other kind! My boyfriend's mother has a convection oven, which I had never worked with before I stayed there the first time. I tried to make lemon bars as normal in it, and they turned out awful! The crust got hard and tough, the filling took twice the normal time to bake and then formed an unpleasant crust on top when it finally did. I tried to mask them with a scoop of raspberry sorbet, but it just looked like a bright red clown nose on top of my lemon-flavored wood planks!