I am the wife of a retired Air Force officer. We have finally retired and moved home to Central Texas. Living on the farm where I grew up has brought back my desire to live more simply and cook healthy flavorful meals. I have two great boys. Cody an artist in Iowa and Nick a US Marine. Both are great cook as well as my husband so food is always a topic of conversation at home. We also all love to travel and eat what is most common in the local area. I really like to do parties with really different selections of appetizers presented really well. I also love to cook soups and stews. I am not sure we will have the weather for it here in Florida!! My Mom and Dad were both awesome cooks. My Dad made outstanding pies particularly Pecan and Sweet Potato. My favorite thing Mom does is enchiladas, from an old recipe, from a friend from New Mexico. They are great! She also is a cookie queen sending them all over the world, wherever her grandkids are. Well my greatest cooking triump came out of tragedy. I went with my Florida church to do hurricane relif work in MS. As an RN I expected to do that kind of work but what was needed was a cook for the relief workers. I started out on a propane stove cooking for 14 and ended a month later cooking on 3 burners for 250. I did 3 meals and 2 snacks a day. I made peach pancakes with homemade peach syrup, bread pudding with lemon sauce, chicken divan, shepards pie, and sandwhiches with all kinds of salads for lunch. Although I did go home between weeks one and two and grab my recipe book tons of spices and a big skillet I really just relied on 30 years of cooking experience and the Grace of God to work from 4:30 Am to 10:00 PM for a month. I knew it was a triumph when one of the young guys with us asked if I would teach his wife to cook!! I am not a baker! Things tend to fall or not come out of the pan right or something. When my boys come in and see a Trifle for dessert they always say "What did you screw up Mom?" We have had some really interesting trifles. :) The most interesting was my biggest disaster. I was cooling a pumpkin cake on the breakfast room table when one of my German Shepherds decide to nibble a corner. I needed a dessert to take to a function immediately sooooooo, I cut off the offending corner. Cut the rest in squares and thinned out the cream cheese frosting with some Cool Whip and layered it all with toasted pecans and topped it with whipped cream. It got rave reviews!! When people asked for the recipe I told them it was a family secret. I really wanted to say you take one German Shepherd, one cake.......:)