I grew up in a traditional household where the man did the man's work and the woman did the cooking and everything else. I should include that there are only three women (me included) in my extended family of thirteen people... as you can imagine, I cook a lot! While the whole gender thing has changed now, I still enjoy being the head cook of my house while teaching others the craft. While others get stressed over making dinner, I love coming home after work/school with the idea that I'm free to 'play' in the kitchen for a little while. I have an extensive educational background in nutrition and cooking, and have a knack for substituting ingredients to make my dishes lighter and healthier... but I still enjoy my not so healthy desserts! I'm getting attracted to easy stuff. After a few years of thinking I was doing good by slaving in the kitchen to make elaborate meals (and being secretly dissapointed when they weren't absolutely wonderful every time), I've realized that it's not as important as making good, fresh, and simple dishes with energy left over to spend time with those I love. I'm tending to gravitate toward my crock pot for healthy meals and tender meats that can cook themselves while I'm at school/work, but I still try to stay away from processed stuff as much as I can. Cooking is such a bonding time for kids and adults. Some of my best memories were over meals or involve smelling a baking ham on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I hope to be able to provide that for my family one day, but maybe with a little healthier twist given America's growing health problems. I think I finally figured out a good recipe for pie crust. My apple dumplings and chicken pot pie have been killer ever since! I have two... one involved the disaster that comes about when you use baking soda instead of baking powder. The other involved a recipe-less attempt to turn a boxed spice cake into a more 'fruit cake' like recipe. The result looked like a volcano exploded in my pan. Oh man, I got teased about that one for years.