Cooking was a childhood hobby of mine. I still remember making pizza-cheeseburgers, turkey mini-loaves, brownies and cakes from scratch. But as I grew, my skills and tastes did as well. Some examples of my modern cooking are: my brownies include Lindt or Ghirardelli; my cakes are low-fat; my trademark raspberry chicken which goes very well with a fruity red wine. Over the years, I learned to adapt recipies for a low-fat diet vegetarian sister, a beef-hungry brother, an acidity sensitive mother, a food texture sensitive father, and a low-sugar diet partner. Most of my main dishes therefore are derivitve of the eclectic vegetable-based Mediterranean recipies. The inspiration for my cooking, however, has made very few (if any) Mediterranean dishes. My Oma always keeps my family's stomachs full with her traditional German cooking... all from scratch... and all made with love. I am currently in a cookie craze, producing and experimenting with ingredients such as bacon, maple, chili peppers, mint, and coffee in my recipes. Previously, I've adapted many brownie mixes to include a little bit of rum for a nice kick. On the entree front, I do a lot of broiling and cooking-by-baking. I cook a lot of seafood and beef in the oven with special secret marinades! On the stovetop, I enjoy making risotto and other fresh vegetable dishes. My family enjoys the rich meals prepared by my Oma on Easter and Christmas holidays: her Knödl (dumplings) and Saurbraten are my favorites. On Thanksgiving, my mother makes the best stuffing I may ever have - it's just the simple dried Stove Top variety, but made with sausage, walnuts, celery, onion, and apple juice instead of water. I absolutely exploded with delight the first time I nailed a Margharita Pizza recipe which I based on a crepe recipe I found on this site. All I had as a reference was the “basic crepes” recipie I found at allrecipes.com. My big dessert trimph was an “Assault by Chocolate” cake, make with Ghirardelli filings and dark chocolate chips... of course, no oil was used in the recipie, and I substituted apple sauce for the eggs, so it was lower in fat.