I'm an avid pursuer of all-things-knowledge, a dedicated student, and a passionate but clumsy cook. I'm looking to learn as much as I can about food and love to use various recipes as starting points for my own creations. I'm a kid at heart, and I think it's my youthful enthusiasm and my natural curiousity that makes working in the kitchen so endearing to me. I love to cook, to eat, and to feed others, so cooking and I will probably enjoy a long future together. I'll cook anything. The precision of baking comes naturally to me - I'm good at following directions and completely enthralled with the alchemy of a perfected recipe. However, since humans just can't live on pastries and sweets, I've been trying to broaden my cooking horizons. I like pasta, grilled/barbequed meat, pilafs and interesting grains (barley, quinoa, exotic rices), vegetarian/vegan recipes (I'm a retired veggie and my older brother is a practicing vegan), and anything new and interesting! Quite often I find myself cooking things that I've never even had before - it makes rating difficult, sometimes. Christmas baking with my mom and Grandma. We're not as ambitious as we used to be, but Christmas isn't christmas without at least a little plate of spritz, shortbread and sugar cookies. We also do the traditional turkey dinner on Christmas eve and I love the crazy, hectic buzz of the kitchen when we're trying to get fifteen dishes ready all at once. Properly cooked roasts! I have the hardest time cooking meat properly (it's either under or over) but when you manage to love a $50 prime rib into sweet juicy submission (especially with six people waiting at the table), it's a beautiful thing. Pretty much everything that I don't burn, overcook, overseason or otherwise ruin is a triumph, for me. I'm getting better. A year or two ago, I was working in the front of house at a restaurant and the pastry chef quit. I immediately tried to convince my boss to let me take over the baking. Finally he gave me a chance and I pulled the recipes up off the computer. I got to work making something simple, banana bread, and ended up with the most terrible batter I've ever seen. It was like a football. I found out later that the disgrunted pastry cook had altered all of her recipes. Luckily I was able to salvage my reputation and kept on doing the baking (with new recipes, of course) until I had to leave the job!