I'm a single mom of a 16 yr old girl. As I've gotten older and gained a little weight, as well as trying to keep fibromyalgia and lupus under control, I'm learning to cook and eat healthier after so many years of being told to eat anything and everything to gain weight. How life changes! My grandmother, a gourmet chef and excellent baker, taught me at an extremely young age how to cook, as did her mother before. Born and raised in Texas, we all started out with good ol down home cooking but, once my grandmother started traveling around the world, she began collecting other recipes and going outside of her comfort zone. Some turned out wonderfully.. other things turned into jokes, many that my brothers and I still laugh about. As a mother, I'm trying to teach my daughter as many of our family's traditional staples as possible. Unfortunately, at this age, she's more interested in skateboarding and video games. Oh, and boys. I don't have too many triumphs to speak of. I mean, nothing truly interesting. Yet, with my daughter steering towards veggies and away from meats, it's given me great chances to work up some interesting salads, and to find inventive ways of sneaking meat into her diet. I have a bad habit of overcooking a lot of things. I think that it's because I tend to lose track of time, getting caught up in whatever I'm doing and forgetting. I'm working on that, though.