I spent many years working in the financial markets which left me little time to cook (except on weekends) although I was able to eat in some of the finest NYC restaurants. It was those experiences that strengthened my desire to become a better cook for myself, my friends and my family. Now that I have started working from home, I have been able to devote more time to honing my skills through classes and good old trial and error. Fortunately, the scales have tipped more towards trial than to error! This is a hard question, because I do not like to limit myself to any particular style or course. I am just as happy to be grilling seafood or fish as I am baking brownies or dessert bars. One request from friends that comes up most frequently is for my dark chocolate jalapeno brownies. They go especially well after grilled swordfish with fresh made salsa. I can't say that I follow any true family traditions. The only comparison I can draw is to my maternal grandmother who, after so many years of perfecting her craft, never consulted recipes. She just knew how much of what would work the best and she was just about always right on the money. After years of entertaining at home with the help of caterers, I had a party in July, 2004, for about 20 people at my beach house that I prepared by myself from start to finish. I was so happy and received so many compliments and requests for recipes. Fortunately, I had help serving and cleaning up! As noted earlier, I learned a lot by trial and error. Closer to the beginning of my trials, there were plenty of errors. Too many could be classified as tragedies to list here!