The name's Sam. I'm 18 and love to cook, always looking for recipes to try. I'm a senior in high school and plan on going to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to work on a degree and high school education license to teach Latin. Why didn't I pick something hard, eh? Anyway, I'm always asking the "Martha Stewarts" of my family to teach me the tricks of the trade (that is, Southern cooking). My paternal grandmother taught me so much, and I long to continue her legacy of great cooking and gracious generocity. That's my ultimate goal. I like cooking main dishes, but baking is my forte. Pies, especially. I love making lattice and cut-out crusts. I also like decorating. Cake decorating isn't my easiest task (nor my neatest), but it's something I'm working on. Cookies are fun, too. I've started a new tradition at Christmas around my house: last year I made dozens and dozens of dipped candies (i.e. peanut butter balls, pretzels, caramels, millionaires, etc.) and other snacks (like sausage balls) for entertaining purposes, and just to have around the house. I plan on keeping the tradition alive. I've gotten pies down-pat. Around Thanksgiving and Christmastime, people start calling the house, asking me to make my apple, sweet potato, pear, or pecan pies for them. I'm always looking for new recipes. Including, but not limited to: * A sugar-cookie volcano when I was about 10 (one of my first ventures...resulted in illness) * Burnt cookies/pie crusts * Marshmallow towers (I put mini-marshmallows on a sweet potato pie and left it in the oven too long, resulting in a black, carbon tower) I guess we learn from our mistakes.