I was raised watching cooking shows..Julia Child, Galloping Gourmet, 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 5 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 meals from scratch. My focus is on using organic foods and raising my kids on a meat free diet. The best thing about vegetarian cooking (besides how much better you feel) is the easy clean up! We have just decided to eliminate high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils from our diet as well...it takes some work, but I feel so much better since adopting this diet! 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. 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 recipes from this site, and it was a wonderful success! As mentioned above, my first Christmas dinner for my family and my husbands family. Any night that I can get dinner for the 7 people in my family is a triumph! 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! But as I cook more I'm learning when you can substitute and when you can't.