I was raised watching cooking shows..Julia Child, Galloping Gormet, and every Saturday watching ALL the cooking shows on PBS. My mother is my inspiration....we always had home cooked meals and desserts. To make a little extra money when we were young she would bake breads and cookies and give them to my dad to sell at his office. Now, with my children, I don't want them to be raised on boxed or canned "prepared" foods, I want them to have the same memories that I had growing up of mom cooking yummy meals from scratch. My oldest daughter already tells me that she loves what I cook (most times anyway!) and that makes all the time I spend in the kitchen worthwhile! Anything really! I love this site because I have found soooo many new things to make! I really enjoy "home cooking", but occaisionally will try more exotic things. I'm not much of a "baker", but every once and a while I'll get in the mood to bake sweet breads and desserts. I enjoy cooking more because I can eyeball things and switch things around without it turning into a complete disaster. My memories involve all of our holiday dinners. Coming from a large Italian family, on Christmas Eve we would have the traditional "7 fishes" after having a large antipasta salad and spaghetti with olive sauce. We would spend hours around the table, and anyone was welcome to stop by. A couple years ago, I hosted my first Christmas dinner with recipies from this site, and it was a wonderful success! (although EXHAUSTING! How did grandma do it all those years!) As mentioned above, my first Christmas dinner for my family and my husbands family. And hearing my husband and family members telling me what a good cook I am (it's all to this site and all those cooking shows I watch credit, though!) I can't remember anything specific, although there was a couple times I was baking and tried to substitute things.......it didn't turn out at all! I think I'll mainly stick to cooking!