I've been cooking since I was a little girl when my grandma let me help her make pies. I'm just an everyday home cook, making meals for my family for almost 40 years. Over the past few years hubby & I have branched out while watching the Food Network. Some of the tv chefs and recipes I've found here have given us ideas and confidence to try new foods and ways of doing things. My husband does at least half the cooking now, after we decide on menus together. Getting that break from what had become an everyday chore has renewed my love of cooking. When the weather turns cold, I love to make soup. We'll eat a different soup at least once a week. I enjoy making a slow simmered sauce for my lasagna, my famous mac and cheese and the chicken pasta dishes with feta and veggies that my husband loves. Different appetizers for Super Bowl watching, a terrific holiday menu for 4th of July which is my favorite holiday and cookie baking at Christmas. Anytime I can be in the kitchen with some or all of the family, talking, laughing and sipping margaritas or wine. I have mastered the food processor that I was wary of and make a mean pesto and different kinds of hummus. I make several different kinds of enchiladas well, and have made tamales sucessfully several times. My biggest triumph comes every year when I usually do Thanksgiving all by myself (which I hate!) but still put a nice meal on the table. While getting a heavy pot roast pan out of an eye-level oven, I spilled hot cooking liquid all over my chest (which blistered up on tender spots pretty good!) I'm famous for making salsas and jalapeno dips so hot you can't eat them. My latest goof was putting old shortning in a batch of Snickerdoodles - Whooee!