I love to cook and bake. My sons are grown now, but still love to cook large meals when I can. I would love to have a catering business, cake or cookie business. I love Asian and Mexican cuisine and BBQ/grilling. I try to cook somewhat healthy, but as in other areas, I am not perfect and go all out and eat unhealthy!!!! I love trying new recipes, the sky's the limit for me. I want to purchase and learn how to use a smoker this next spring. Hopefully, then I can try and make some of these wonderful bar-b-que recipes on this site! My mother was born in Sweden and I grew up with Swedish food my entire life. (I was 17 before I ate a taco and older before I had a casserole). We ate open-face sandwiches because that is the way it is in Sweden. At Christmas time, everything was from Sweden. I now miss some of those foods but some of them I don't miss at all. Here in midwest Illinois, my ma used to cook blood sausage and ruttabagas and the smell was awful. Us kids had to move to a different level of the house...like outside or in the attic. Every Christmas, her family made glugg and every Christmas my ma's ears got red and her lips tingled. My ma was a Swedish mommy dearest at times and if we didn't eat all that was on our plate, we had to "sit there until the moon came out." And that it was "tough in North America." Did you know that the moon can be seen in daylight? I have had many successes with baking and decorating cakes. Something I don't do very often, but just love making Barbie cakes, basket cakes, and my favorite flowers to make are pansies. Accidentally picking up a cake pan after filling with my favorite cake recipe, and putting in the oven, not realizing I also picked up the rubber lid underneath and placed it in the oven. It melted and started smoking badly. My oven was (no longer have it) a self cleaning oven and my husband (no longer have him) locked the latch thinking all the plastic would burn up and my oven would be cleaned. When large flames engulfed the inside of the oven, we tried to unlatch and of course broke the handle. There was fire department involvement and a heavy layer of burning rubber permeated the subdivision. I was horrified. I did have a dinner party in my home the following evening and blamed the horrible smell on my husband (me bad). I re-baked my cake at Ma's to serve at my party. I still have that cake pan, but can't stand to use it as it brings back bad memories. Neighbors still snicker as they walk past my house.