I have a very strong line of women in my family who can COOK. Cooking flows through my blood. My mom is very traditional when it comes to supper and would make us all sit down as a family to a hot meal. Without her forcing me to eat my greens and try Everything she made, I wouldn't have such an open mind to food. I love to try everything and there is only a few things that I don't like to eat. I love to cook traditional Southern-style food and Asian food. I spent a month in China and worked for a year in a Chinese restaurant. My Asian tastes have been spoiled and I have found that it is up to me to satisfy my Asian cravings (eating take out Chinese is like trying to enjoy Mexican food by eating Taco Bell). I also love to cook fresh vegetables from my garden or from the farmer's market. My old roommate was a vegetarian and really inspired me to expand my veggie dishes. I LOVE Thanksgiving because (as I said before) the ladies in my family love to cook and to display their culinary talents. Thanksgiving is always a variety of yummy, Southern dishes, sometimes traditional and sometimes made with a twist. Another tradition that I love is Christmas breakfast. We do the big, extended family thing on Christmas eve and Christmas day is reserved for the immediate family. My mom has cooked the same thing for as long as I can remember and I love it every time! Probably one of the bbq's my boyfriend and I host (usually on game day, GO DAWGS!) for 20+ people. We make "award winning" meat and serve up delicious sides. Another triumph is the MaPo Tofu dish I made once that tasted just like it was served in China. My boyfriend actually enjoyed something with Tofu in it! 2 come to mind: 1. The first meal I cooked for a boy. I was making stuffed eggplant and the recipe called for salting the eggplant, letting it sit, then washing the salt out. Apparently I skipped over the instructions to wash out the salt and the dish was TERRIBLE. 2. Recently I just moved in to a new house. The first big meal I cooked in the kitchen was for my boyfriend's birthday. I should have tested out the kitchen first because the range/oven was completely broken. I charred his birthday cinnamon rolls, ruined the zucchini bread, had very runny grits and undercooked the fish. I was very upset because it was the most ambitious meal I had attempted. It was edible but not what I had envisioned.