As well as cooking, I enjoy reading, gardening, DIY, crafts, movies, politics, playing online video games, music, drinking wine, and generally faffing around. While I love trying recipes from each and every part of the world – especially Indian dishes, Thai, Mexican, Italian – I also love traditional Mid-west/Southern cooking, and also good old-fashioned traditional-English-fare-I-grew-up-with (and English food is NOT the boring muck that the stereotypes would have you believe). I guess I especially enjoy making foreign dishes as authentically as possible - I LOVE going to ethnic grocers for unusual ingredients. It's so satisfying to tuck into something that tastes like it might have come from your favorite Chinese/Thai/Italian etc restaurant. My mum – who, like her mother, is an awesome cook - and I have never been close, and she never wanted any help in the kitchen, nor did she express the slightest interest in teaching me any recipes. Sure, we had lots of cooking traditions – namely birthdays, Christmas, Boxing Day, Shrove Tuesday, Easter etc - but they were always her thing, and my only contribution was to eat what was put in front of me. Sad huh? I have, however, continued some family traditions here in the US for just the two of us. I consider it a triumph any time I make something that is delicious – it doesn't matter if it is quick and simple, or gourmet! Nothing beats the feeling of seeing your cooking enjoyed and appreciated. I am also immensely proud when Husband brags about my cooking to other people :) I can finally say that my cooking tragedies are pretty much a thing of the past. Every now and again I'll make something that won't even make it to the table, but, thankfully, it doesn't happen often.