I am a 24 year old Pisces and married to a wonderful man named Chad (who also happens to be a Chef), we met in Culinary School. I love Snowboarding, Karate, punk rock, reality T.V. (I know, shameful), Dr. Phil, painting, ANIMALS, kids, wine and anything my grandma cooks. My favorite thing is to go out to my dads veggie garden at sunset and "pick" my dinner from the earth, and create a spontaneous, fresh, organic meal....what could be better? I love baking, but I also LOVE cooking real authentic Asian cuisine, the real stuff, no bright red sweet sour sauce here! Homemade Dim Sum is my favorite, it is a passion for me. My family is very ethnically diverse in that all my aunts, uncles, grandma and mother grew up in Macau (a small, European settlement boardering South China, once a portuguse fishing town, now part of China) and Hong Kong, (although we are of Portuguese heritage)so not only did I grow up eating foods heavily influenced by Chinese traditions, but also Macanese food and Portuguse food. For example, we'd have Jook (a Chinese rice Porridge) after midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then Empada (a Portuguese fish pie) on Christmas Morning, these are just some of the unique traditions I grew up with. I love my families unique and diverse heritage and cooking traditions and feel very fortunate to have grown up with such rich culture and traditions. I won first prize in a blind chili contest! But of course, I made the chili on a whim and didn't write down the recipe because I didn't think I'd win anyway, just my luck. I do, however, remember pouring in a whole bottle of Coca-Cola AND a whole bottle of beer!!! I once tried to convert a recipe for muffins into a loaf bread,...I thought "Just pour the batter into a loaf pan, turn down the heat and cook it longer, right?" Wrong,....so wrong. Disaster, a horrible, unimaginalble, messy, gooey disaster.