I have been living in Northern Ireland for 4 years with my husband (Irish) and our 4 year old twins. I really enjoy cooking Mexican food, but the problem in Northern Ireland is that ingredients are very hard to come by. If you're looking for canned green chiles, forget it. Fresh chiles that you can roast, no chance. Corn tortillas? They'll laugh you out of the store. I've been cooking alot of Italian and Indian food recently, as I can source ingredients without much problem. My absolute favorite tradition was when I lived back in the U.S.A., my mom and I used to have "cookie-rama". From the time I was 4 to 30, every year about 3 weeks before Christmas, my mother and I would start making and freezing different types of cookie dough, until we had about 1 dozen varieties. During Christmas week, we would bake up all the dough into hundreds and hundreds of cookies, and deliver cookie baskets to friends and family. It has to be what I miss the most about home. Last year (2006), I continued the tradition with my own 4 year-old daughter. Whenever someone tastes my cooking and I can tell they truly enjoy it, that for me is a triumph. ( As a special treat for my husband, I made homemade walnut and bleu cheese ravioli, tossed with extra virgin olive oil and baby spinach. My husband greedily tucked into his food, and was about four bites ahead of me. But I'd noticed that he kept looking up at me while he was eating. When I took my first bite, I'd realised my mistake. I'd forgotten to wash the spinach before adding it, which led to every ravioli being covered with sand-like grit!