I'm married, have a 5 year old daughter and a 2 year old son. I love love love to cook. If I had the time, and the expendable calories, I'd make big meals for breakfast lunch and dinner. I typically cook about 5 dinners a week and then a big breakfast or lunch on Saturday or Sunday. I attribute some of my interest in cooking to having had lots of neighbors who are all good cooks. We lived in a neighborhood where we were friends with all our neighbors. Several families got together weekly and each of us brought something different. Every week we tried to come up with a new dish that everyone would like. It was a lot of fun and I think we all learned a lot. Pasta dishes. Maybe because it's hard to mess up pasta. I think I have a pretty good knack for throwing things together that end up tasting pretty good. My grandpa and uncle were always good candy makers and I loved helping them make lots of candy near the holidays. Now, I have my extended family over before Christmas to make candy and cookies. To me, this is almost more fun than Christmas itself. I think it's fun trying to copy some of my favorite restaurant meals. Sometimes it takes a few tries but then it's a big triumph when I think I've finally gotten one right. The only downside to this is that my husband thinks he doesn't have to take me out to eat anymore because he likes my dinners better. Ha! A specific triumph that sticks out in memory is when I made a doll cake for my niece's birthday a few years ago. It was one of those ones where you stick an actual doll down in a cake that's been baked in a bowl, so it makes a round ballgown type dress. I thought it looked fun and not too difficult. 10 hours later (ok maybe I'm exaggerating, but only slightly) and after grumbling "what have I gotten myself into" about a dozen times, I had a beautifully icing dressed barbie... that I hated to see cut up. ;-) It was a huge hit with my niece though, which totally made it all worthwhile. I made the most aweful tiramisu when my husband and I were first married. It's one of my favorite desserts, but I've yet to tackle it again. Maybe I'll go look up some recipes for it now...