I'm a midwest girl transplanted to the West coast. I got married at the beginning of 2004, and have fed dozens of people in our home this year. As far as I know, they all left happy and no one got sick. I mostly like to cook and eat dessert and bread, but I try not to do too much of that for the sake of our waistlines. My grandmother was an excellent cook. Since I got married I have had a strong urge to replicate her recipes as much as possible. As all newlyweds, I had to have at least one cooking disaster. Mine happened when I was making tomato basil cream soup. I had arrived at the next to the last step, pureeing the soup in the blender. First, I didn't hold down the lid and hot soup splattered me and the kitchen. I cleaned up the mess and then held the top down firmly the next time I started the blender; so firmly, in fact, that I pushed the plastic top down into the blender. It got chipped up. In my confusion, I dumped the plastic-laden portion back into the stock pot with the untainted soup, thus ruining it all. But we ate it anyway, and just picked out the plastic pieces as they came up. Now I have a stick blender which works much better.