I am currently a real estate agent in the small town of Lake Placid, Florida. Because the market is slow right now I have had a lot of extra time on my hands. I have recently been trying lots of new recipes and trying them on my family. My husband and I also love the outdoors and are avid hunters and fishermen. Family is really important to us and we all get together at least once a week for dinner. I am always in charge of desserts at our family gatherings. I usually get all of my new recepies from this website and they have all been a great. I love to cook desserts with friuts, like cobblers. I also have a soft spot for pudding desserts. Pies are also a specilty of mine. Last Thanksgiving we started a new tradition. My husband's Aunt and Uncle always cook dinner, so their daughter, two daughter-in-laws and I got together the night before the BIG DAY and cooked all of the desserts. We all went to one house and brought the main ingredients of our dish and made our desserts. The person that was hosting the event provided the flour, butter, sugar, etc. We had so much fun. I was nice all being together and helping each other create the very tasty desserts that were to follow the next day's meal. This is the most creative and relaxing tradition I have ever been a part of and hope to continue it for years to come! My cooking triumphs have probably been not being afraid to create new things. Sometimes you may not have all of the ingredients needed for a recipe or want to just kick it up a little. I have gained the courage to try new things and become familiar with enough ingrdients to know what makes food taste good. Everyone gets tired of the same old same old, so my major triumph has been to gain the courage to go that extra step and turn everyday foods into meal masterpieces! I have had a lot of mishaps in the kitchen, don't get me wrong...but the worse had to be one meal inparticular that I will never forget. One night I had invited one of our friends over for dinner. When we got to the table, the chicken was not cooked all the way through, the mashed potatoes were lumpy and paste like. I tried to make a flour rue for the gravy, which seperated and I found myself stirring a pot of flour and oil. I know we had some kind of vegetable, but the rest of the meal was such a disaster I can't remember what it was. I told my husband and our friend that at least dessert would be good. Oh how wrong I was...I cut the pie and we all had a bite and I immediatly knew something was wrong. That is when my husband blurted out, "Did you forget the sugar?" Yes, yes I did. I had skippedover the recipe because our frind is allergic to cinnimon and also skipped the sugar. This is a meal that will not soon be forgotten.