I'm a high school Spanish teacher, just getting out on my own. I've lived in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Spain...all of which influence my food preferences. I love what my dad and I call "food" as opposed to dessert. We would rather eat dinner twice. Therefore, I love to cook savory dishes. I love side dishes and starters especially. I also tend to put things together that other people wouldn't like. I had a peanut butter and pesto sandwich kick for a while (it had a very Thai taste to it). I'm half Italian American, and therefore have many many recipes that are Italian from my family. At all of our holiday dinners there is always a pasta course. Being from New England we also have a lot of those flavors at our holiday meals. My mother and I love to experiment and try new recipes. I would say she likes to follow the recipe closer while I work with what I have or what I want to include. Anytime I make something for other people and they eat it I consider it a triumph. I can't really think of one specific thing that sticks out in my mind as really good however. Each time I make a family recipe that comes out well I am very excited. I have had a couple of recipes that just don't work. Mostly because I don't like the taste and not because it was badly made. I would say the worst thing recently was a potato, peas, pearl onion, and dill recipe side dish I made. I apparently don't like fresh dill (though I do like dried) and I always think I'm going to enjoy pearl onions and I never do. :) Although the cooking tragedy I remember most is in Home Ec we were supposed to put 1 3/4 cup flour in our C. Chip Cookies and we only put in the 3/4 part. The cookies were soft and very shiny because of so much butter/ liquid...I think they tasted pretty nasty too!