I came from a very large family and being the oldest I was always pressed into service by my Mom. I remember making my first Thanksgiving dinner at around 7 years of age. Washing the bird, making the stuffing from scratch, peeling potatoes, everything but the gravy. Took me years to learn how to make great gravy. I like to bake and I have made many a good loaf of bread. I like to make cakes, pies anything sweet. I taught my sons to cook at a very early age. I am now starting to teach my grandchildren the joys of baking and when they are older we will be expanding their horizons with adventures in what people in other areas of the country and beyond eat. I was influenced by that she devil (smile) Martha Stewart. I had seen these beautiful boxes of dozens of lavishly decorated Christmas cookies and decided to give these to my husband's co-workers. I baked dozens of filled, rolled, dropped and spritzed cookies. I bought different colored cupcake papers and lots of boxes and ribbons and tissue paper. They were all loving filled with dozens of cookies and delivered to his workplace. He worked at the Post Office and I was a stay at home Mom at the time. Every year after that they asked when he was going to bring then more cookies. By that time I was working full time at a neighboring Post Office and he laughed out loud when they suggested that during our busiest time of the year I would be able to eat a cookie let alone bake hundreds of them. It still warms my heart to know that I gave a gift that was truly appreciated! I was baking cookies. I had stored a giant container of what I was sure was sugar. One taste told me that was totally wrong. After making two seperate batches I finally realized what was wrong. I had stored salt. Thank goodness I had not baked them, but it was a very costly mistake.