As a child, I wanted to be a Home Economics teacher. Instead, I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. I've worked as a contract food service manager, and a restaurant/grocery/tobacco sanitarian ("health inspector"). I'm a breast cancer survivor. At age 40 I was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of Interductal Carcinoma, Stage 2/3. I had a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and now 10 years of hormonal suppression therapy. I'm a homeschooling mom to my son (my daughter is in public school) and "professional" volunteer. I love anything spicy or as a minimum with lots of garlic and pepper. I've been on a green chile kick lately (2009) and planted several types of peppers in my garden this year. We have chocolate chip pancakes on Christmas morning. On birthdays, the kids get to select what food they want for dinner. My son loves to use AllRecipes to find recipes with ingredients he's in the mood to eat. Anytime my husband & son exclaim "This is great!" or "This is better than ---- restaurant's version!" I once tried to make a fried onion blossum in my small fryer. I forgot to allow for the displacement of oil the onion would do, and about how the moisture would make the oil bubble up. I made a giant mess! Just as it was happening, the Welcome Wagon lady showed up at our door (we'd just purchased our first home). She didn't seem to have a clue that she should come back at a different time, as I was busy cleaning up fryer oil from the outside and inside of cabinets, between the stove and the cabinets, under the stove, etc. She just kept talking away!