Hi im Dominican and yes only 17! I love cooking! I love food! my mother taught me how to cook at the tender age of 12..=). And still learning, my mom's jelous of my cooking!..lol...she says the student mastered the teacher! fried platains(green yellow), lasagne, shrimp pasta, chiken fricase' with white rice, rice and beans (moro), crab claws, and too many to list! Sancocho, and rice-beans and chicken with a side salad. My mother was teaching me how to soften dry packaged beans in a pressure cooker, and my mother was doing something and she sent me to check on the beans, and i tried with all my mighty power to open the pressure cooker and it didnt open and my mom came and she saw i was trying to open it but gladly she said NO!!!! and stopped me on time before the disaster was uncovered!thank god..=). burning my fingers, and trying to light an old fashioned oven at my fathers house, which rose the fire and burned the hairs on my arms..=/.lol.