First and foremost, I wholeheartedly believe healthy eating starts with raw ingredients! I have three teenagers - my own two children, and a foreign exchange student from Japan who is living with us for this school year. The heart of our home is the dinner table...I involve the kids in planning weekly meals, grocery shopping, and cooking. My 16 year old is a fabulous young cook; she loves to make red beans and rice, coconut curry chicken and salmon! My 13 year old is becoming an avid baker--he'll proudly show you his banana bread. And, our 18 year old exchange student is filling her recipe book with tried and true favorites to take home, while sharing with us culinary traditions from her own family. We have traveled the world with the military, and love trying all types of new foods. I love to cook Asian foods (particularly Japanese and Thai), fish (mostly salmon), soups and pastas. I'm venturing into Vietnamese, Mexican and Indian dishes. We're a very active and busy family, so recipes that use healthy ingredients, resulting in comfort (heart-of-the-home) dishes, are what we love to try! Anything that involves family-in-the-kitchen is a favorite time for me. Holiday meals are especially memorable because these are occasions where my siblings and parents meet for huge culinary fests that stray from tradition (anything from turkey to sushi) and bring forth new recipes to add to each of our own collections. Discovering this site and all the 5-star recipes! The "comfort" factor of foods is very important to me, so if I find a dish that speaks to us enough to keep the recipe in our repertoire, it's a success!! I went through a phase of cooking cream-based soups, and was so excited to discover a tomato bisque that I was 100% sure my nieces would love. Proudly made it for them one holiday season, only to have my oldest niece (then 5) taste it, turn to her mom (my sister), shake her head, and ask for Cambell's tomato soup (made with milk, of course). Showed up by processed...sigh...