I'm currently a Peace Corps Volunteer living in Cape Verde, Africa. I've been cooking since I was a child; being a "latch-key kid" from a single parent home and a nurse for a mom (who also was a horrible cook), I started concocting my own creations when I was about 7 years old. I love cooking chilli in huge batches, and right now (living on an island in a port town) I love learning new ways to cook fish! My great aunt makes the best gnocci I've ever had; my grandmas sauce is the bomb, and my mom has perfected her meatballs. Can you tell we're italian? I've managed to pull of cooking some pretty complex things here in Cape Verde, despite our limited ingredients, spices and sporadic electricity, plus the worlds smallest stoves. This Christmas I've got a full spread planned for the other volunteers on the island, and 7 types of cookies, hummus and stuffing down, I think it's going to be fablous if I can keep it all warm! It'll also be my first time making homemade pita bread. I bought an organic free range turkey once for nearly $4 a pound and it turned out awful; super dry. After spending about $70 I almost cried. Also my aunt has this fantastic "raw" pasta sauce she makes with cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic, oil and parmasean cheese; the first time I tried to copy her I added waaaay too much garlic (I do this frequently cause I love garlic and tend to go overboard) and it was totally inedible. Major bummer.