I am a food lover from way back who used to always clean my plate, plus everyone else's, at the dinner table. I've had to trim back since my metabolism slowed down, but I still love to eat and try new things. I love to cook, but I love recipes even more. I have a big cookbook collection and my ultimate Saturday involves a rainy day and a pile of cookbooks to read. I love to read recipes for gourmet, fancy-schmancy meals, but my favorite things to cook are the down-home comfort foods that my Mom used to make. I love pot roast and casseroles and anything that has been "chicken fried"! I'm not a big sweets fan, but I love fresh fruit pies and sweet rolls. I used to love cooking dinner with my Mom when I got home from school. I learned a lot about food and how to make things taste good by helping her in the kitchen, and I hope to pass the tradition of helping with meals to my own children. I also used to love making homemade raspberry jelly in the summer with berries from the backyard. Nothing is quite the same as homemade red raspberry jelly! I pride myself on being a good overall cook, although I don't have any special dish that I claim as my triumph. I think my proudest accomplishment is that my dishes are always the favorites at work potlucks and people always drop by in the morning on food days to ask me what I brought so they can try my dish first. I once made a chicken dish where you pound the chicken thin and roll it up with Fontina cheese and other ingredients, then brown in a saute pan. The smell of the Fontina when it oozed out of the chicken and hit the hot pan made me so sick that I could not bear to eat the finished dish. My husband said it was good, but the thought of making the dish again made me so ill that I had to tear up the recipe and throw it out.