Always an adventurer in the kitchen. In fact, it's probably my most favorite place to be. Have had many triumphs and many fewer failures and love to experiment and challenge myself with 'what can I make next?' or 'What can I do with all this stuff I bought at the Farmer's Market today?' Love to tweak/experiment with recipes to alter them to my tastes/needs/ingredients at hand, and have learned that there are many recipes that you do NOT want to mess with, they are best left as written. (more trial and error!) It was difficult for me to choose the categories for this profile as I needed many more choices/selections! Have made everything from crackers (soda, graham, whole wheat, basil/parmesan,etc.), ketchup, (what a mess that turned out to be..on the ceiling!), fois gras, souffles, stuffed/roasted/braised/grilled/baked almost anything you can name, bake all of our breads (store bought??? only when in dire need!), preserved/canned/dried too many fruits and veggies to mention. I have yet to satiate my culinary inquisitiveness. Been in the food buisness for 20 years or so, prior to that my voyage was on my own. I am addicted to recipes. Yes, I am. There should be some kind of support group or something. Can read a recipe book or food magazine cover to cover like it's a novel. My collection of printed recipes from the computer is almost embarrassing, not to mention torn out pages, articles, features related to food/current available produce, recipes someone has scribbled down on even a napkin in my restaurant for me....and cookbooks cookbooks cookbooks. I am insatiable. Hence, my voyage continues..........quite happily so. Favorite thing to cook?? lol This isn't really a tradition, but it began my journey into the art of food preparation. When I was 12 or 13 or so, my mother required that my two sisters and I each plan and prepare a meal once at week. Which relieved her from three nights of cooking(oh she was so smart!), and launched our knowledge of the planning/list making/purchasing/ingredient prepping/timing/tasting/tweaking...everything I came to love about preparing a meal. Thank you, mom. :) I will say that there were many 'canning' parties.....we would get bushels of the fruit/produce in season, my mom and I and my older sister (both with young families) and spend the whole day in her kitchen..canning green beans or pears or peaches or tomatoes or applesauce or jellies or pickled beets...babies all around, husbands coming home after work to eat whatever we had fortuituosly put in the crockpot for them to eat when they arrived. We perfected our own sort of production. So many....but I'd probably have to say making/earning a name for myself as a cook. People know if I made it, ohhh it's gonna be good! It can be a challenge, you continually have to 'top' yourself, keep up the standard. And on occasion you produce a flopper. It happens, not often but it does indeed happen. And this takes you into 'Oh , what do I do now?' mode. Many fine dishes have come out of such mode. A fantastic learning experience! I have a reputation for trying a recipe for the first time when I am taking it to present somewhere. Not always a good practice, but all in all I have rarely disappointed. The first time I attempted to bake bread was notable. I was 18, living in my first place by myself. It didn't rise AT ALL, was like flour bricks. Seriously. Hard as a brick. (One has to get a 'feel' for bread dough over time.) My then boyfriend picked them up out of the trash can and used them to throw at some dogs that were digging in my garden to scare them off. At least they ultimately had some purpose! Most other tragedies were tragedies to me, but as I was lamenting over such....the people eating them commented that my 'tragedies' were quite delicious and to just shut up already! (My own worst critic....it's true.)