I have always been into food and cooking. My mom is an amazing gourmet chef, but when she married her first husband she couldn't tell one end of a wooden spoon from the other (she blames this on her mother, who grew up in England having servants handle the cooking, and thus had no culinary skill to pass on). My mother decided that my sister and I should not share the same fate, so we were always in the kitchen with her, learning by doing. My dad's mom is a great traditional Southern chef, and I try to honor her by keeping the soul-food tradition alive. More recently, I've learned a lot from my mother-in-law, a New Englander, whose parents are from Italy. She makes fabulous Italian food, and is an amazing multi-tasker in the kitchen. My husband and I are expecting our first child in a few days, and I hope he and I pass on our love of cooking to our children. The things that are bad for me, of course! I am a fromage-o-phille (great lover of CHEESE), so that makes it's way into a lot of dishes. Lately I have been really into roasting veggies--carrots, butternut squash, turnips, brussels sprouts, etc. They are all fantastic! I always decorate Christmas cookies with my mother-in-law (or at least until this year, when my husband and I moved back to AZ from MA). I love making Thanksgiving with my mom (even though she's a general in the kitchen). As a kid, my cousins and I (they are all Southern; my twin & I are the only West-Coasters) would "put up" vegetables with our grandmother every summer. That entails getting the vegetables from her garden prepared for winter, a very old country tradition. We'd do corn and tomatoes, okra and beans... And they were SO good, especially when she would make her homemade vegetable soup with them all. She has had a stroke and doesn't do much of that anymore (though she still makes the best fried chicken in state of North Carolina), and my cousins and I haven't all been together in years, but it's one of my most cherished childhood memories. Making the best Thanksgiving dinner on the block! It's got some of my mother-in-law's New England style, some of my mom's Julia Child, and a little of dad's Southern comfort-food flair, but I've made it my own. Even guests who are gourmets themselves proclaim it excellent. It's a little scary doing it yourself for the first time, instead of having familt make dinner, but now that I have a couple of years under my belt I am CRUISIN'! This is one my husband will never let me forget--I decided to make him tiramisu for his b-day cake. I am not a fan of tiramisu, but he loves it, so I thought I'd be a wonderful wife and surprise him. Well, I was an idiot and bought not lady fingers (which are sponge cake), but VIENNA FINGERS, which are essentially vanilla-flavored Oreos. Now, I knew something seemed odd as I was assembling the dish. When they indicated that you should split the lady fingers in half, I noticed that it did not say anything about the frosting. Hmmm... Well, my husband's eyes lit up when he saw the desert & blew out his 32 candles, but as he ate it dawned on him that something was off, and we eventually figured out where I went wrong. He was great about it, though, and still says it's one of his favorite birthday memories ever. Thank goodness! He still won't let me live it down, though.