I grew up with a single and Very hardworking mother so at around the age of 8 I started trying to make my own dinners. About ten years of test trial and error later my mom finally got me out of her kitchen!! Now I love cooking for my mother, my boyfriend and his roommate...basically anyone who looks like they need to be fed =) I love pastas and breads. Anything that you get to knead with your own hands. The transformation that bread doughs go through as you prepare them is amazing and I feel so proud when they actually rise and turn out as loaves! Bagels are fun because they never last more than a couple hours after I make them, everyone loves them! I remember my mom used to wake up an extra 15 or twenty minutes early on weekdays when she had to go to work and I had school just to make fresh homemade blueberry muffins. They were sooo good! That was a wonderful thing to wake up to. I was really happy when I finally got the knack of baking bread, there's nothing like how proud you feel when you first pull a successful loaf out of the oven! Roasting a chicken was another thing that took a bit of practice! When I was 13 or so I went on a sugar cookie kick and made them often, I became overconfident...thought I could adjust recipes as it suited me...I had a lovely round seasoned baking stone that I would make cookies on. On day the fire alarm in the kitchen starting going off! Turns out my cookies had literally grown like a 50's horror movie ooze and run off the side of the stone in copious amounts. When the sugar and butter hit the heating coils on the bottom of the oven they caught on fire! There were flames obliterating the bottom of my oven and our roomie at the time ran in and rescued me with a big jar of salt and wet dishtowel =( I don't particularly care for sugar cookies anymore.