I just recently moved across the country from the north east coast (Boston) to the south west coast (San Diego). I like to say I'm half scientist and half artist. As such cooking is a perfect mix of my loves and passions. I enjoy trying new things and absolutely live for traveling. I enjoy spending outdoors and with my loved ones. I love to transition country cooking and/or unhealthy recipes into low-fat, more nutritional recipes. I also have a fondness for trying to make home-style american classics into vegetarian dishes. Aside from that I love to bake anything sweet and enjoy cooking American, Mexican, Italian and Middle Eastern food. I've recently started to dabble in Indian and Thai cooking too! I grew up in a family of great cooks. I've tried to continue their recipes and traditions by cataloging the recipes as well as the techniques involved. One of my very favorites is homemade noodles. My grandmother Easley always served that with Thanksgiving and Christmas meals and I learned to love and cook them at a young age. My biggest triumphs have been involving my family. Every now and again I host a major holiday and put out a big spread. The hugest undertaking was when I cooked for 30 people for my Grandma Easley's last Christmas. She thought it would be her last and was very sad she couldn't cook a big dinner. I cooked for a week straight to get all the family favorites there full a full spread including a couple meat-entrées and many many sides and several pies and cookies. Everyone loved it and I was so pleased I could labor out of love for her. I've always been challenged by baking bread. I still give it a shot every now and again but I've come to learn each cook/baker has an area of weakness that is difficult for them to master and that is mine. The other thing that comes to mind is the time I made a pan of sausage gravy and mistakenly picked up a bag of salt instead of sugar. I added a bit more and a bit more and it just didn't get sweet. FINALLY I realized what was going on. Ahhh well. I was only 10. ;)