I grew up in a family that had a Thai mother and Italian father. I feel blessed to have learned from both cultures. I also learned so much from my Italian inlaws. I love to create wonderful dishes that people can remember. I am also lazy lol. So..I use alot of shortcuts. I like quick and easy meals, and also meals that I can take my time making.My house is the house everyone comes to during the holidays! I live in Arizona with my husband and children and am a stay at home mom. I love to bake and am going to get into bread making here real soon! Every holiday is chaos, but I love it. Cookies, candies,cakes,etc. I love making dishes in my crockpot. Its a lifesaver. But I also love to create sauces. A good sauce, can make a mediocre dish taste outstanding! I still follow the traditions of every Holiday that my family did. We NEVER had a bakery birthday cake. I grew up where cakes were made for the birthday person by someone they loved. I still bake all my cakes, encourage my teenage daughter to as well and refuse to buy Birthday cake. One of my cooking triumphs was when my husband couldnt tell the difference between his mothers meatloaf and mine! Another is to finally duplicate a cake recipe that my mother made years ago and I couldnt get it before she passed on. Thanksgiving dinner is always wonderful here. Thank goodness I can put out a decent spread of food. my tragedies always seem to happen at the worst momments like at Holidays when people gather. I have had many. But you learn and move on. My worst dish was a steamed Chilean Sea Bass (not from this site) WOW did I screw that up.