I am a 3rd year law student at Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley), and procrastinate through cooking. When I was younger, I abhorred cooking and would exchange the chore for cleaning the bathroom. However, since early undergrad I have been teaching myself to cook and it is now one of my favorite pastimes. Whether cooking birthday cakes and holiday treats or gourmet dishes for elaborate dinner parties, I value how food brings people together. Allrecipes has been my #1 resource. Yeast breads, cakes, cookies, casseroles, pastas, stir fry, french fries, and the occasional new dish (yeast cinnamon rolls and breads, toffee, pheasant, crepes, crab bisque, etc.) I'm branching out into Indian food. Family dinners came with a game of dominoes. My dad is a commercial fisherman, so I was raised on delicious seafood dishes, including my mom's fab recipes for BBQ salmon, Cioppino, and shrimp scampi. Also, I associate powdered sugar crescent cookies, red-velvet (Waldorf) cake, and layered avocado bean dip with Christmas, and homemade peach ice cream with summer. There is also the family joke that Mom always forgets something in her cornbread. My first time cooking with yeast: amazing homemade cinnamon rolls. Also, making hard candy and toffee using a candy thermometer. Two delectable tres leche cakes. Recently, chicken korma. During one of my first times cooking as a 4th grader, I was simply following my mom's directions without a clear idea of what I was cooking. I had 2 pots on the stove: one with ground beef and one with hot water. She told me to put the jar of sauce in a pan, and with my 9-year-old logic, I determined that because one pot already had stuff(meat) in it, and the other only water, I should dump the sauce in the boiling water, and proceeded to do so. I soon found out I was cooking spaghetti. While baking with an ex I forgot the sugar in sugar cookies.