I am 23-years old and about to start a doctoral program at Princeton University. I love everything about food ... shopping for it, cooking it and, of course, eating it! I am always trying to find ways to make the food I eat healthier and fresher. I used to be a vegetarian, but have been converted back to eating meat by my partner. As a compromise, we only buy meat from the farm where it was raised ... surprisingly, it isn't that hard to find such places, even in New Jersey. I love to bake ... cookies, muffins, breads, etc. but I also love to cook! Grilling, blackening and stir frying are my favorite methods. I must say, my parents did not cook very much (not really at all, actually), so I am completely self taught. My partner and I have thrown several very successful dinner parties ... including, what has now become a tradition, our 2nd Thanksgiving party, where we deep fry a turkey, some chickens, and make a ham, along with stuffing, veggies and all the other fixings. It has been a huge success! We recently had a Deep-Fry Summerfest, as well. We deep fried various appetizers (onion rings, mozzarella sticks, etc -- all made from scratch of course) and smoked a pork shoulder to make some pulled pork ... that pig didn't last 10 minutes before it was gone! I misread the directions on a recipe one time for ground venison burgers and I added three times as much oil as it called for. I had to squeeze the excess out and was barely able to salvage the meal!