Just a science/music geek who finds cooking is a perfect merger. Almost anything! Using this site has been fun to cook vicariously and read others' opinions before trying. Baking is still my favorite and most-requested. In CA we have plenty of local, fresh, home-grown ingredients which can be prepared simply and deliciously. For years my kids had no idea that their chili and spagetti had very little or no meat! First dish ever: Jolly Breakfast Ring from a Betty Crocker kids' cookbook. That lives on in its various iterations. Creatively financing summer travel while in college by making birthday cakes, cookies, and "comfort food" for dorm and sorority/frat kids. Aside from that, having 3 cardiologists volunteer venture capital to custom make cheesecakes was perhaps the most flatttering. Most memorable: attempting whole wheat bagels as a teen. After about 200+ "hockey pucks/doorstops" I realized this was best left to the pros. Southern biscuits started out that way but easily became dumplings on chicken pot pie/chicken ala king. Now can make flaky biscuits! After two miserable attempts at yeast dough and with no one to eat all the projects, I appreciate that art from the consumer side. Aside from those, we tend to eat whatever is cooked even if snickered about for years.