I cook/bake as a way I show my care and affection for others. I make time to bake every weekend (no matter how late it gets), and it drives my Mom absolutely crazy. However, I like to cook for the joy of cooking, not because I'm hungry and I need something to eat. I generally cook to my audience, mostly college boys. So I bake mostly cookies (which keep the longest, and aren't too sweet), biscotti, breads, brownies, brittle, muffins, cakes, and so forth. Whatever I have in my pantry! :) I started cooking on my own in junior high, after my Mom taught me how to bake a simple cake recipe she was known for. (It was a yellow cake made from a boxed mix, covered in a layer of cream cheese with canned blueberry filling on top.) She would ask me to make that whenever we had company, until I began getting creative on my own. Since then, the rest is history...! Once I realized I was short on flour halfway through, and it was too late to run to the market. I went ahead to see what would happen anyway (I'm a science major and I have an undying curiosity) to the cookies I was baking. They came out as a layer of buttery goop, spread out onto my cookie sheet in a big blob. It smelled delicious, but it was inedible and a dishwashing disaster. But now I know! :)