Rarely use a recipe: my "eyeball", the palm of my hand and a teacup are my most frequently used measuring devices. Anything I want. Usually involves cheese (maybe I was a dairy maid in another lifetime?). My grandmother's butterbeans; my other grandmother's fruitcake (YES, I like fruitcake! Wanna make something of it?); my mother's copy of Foods of the Western World by Theodora Fitzgibbons--yes, I have cookbook lust!; my sister's Persian Rice and Chicken with Pomegranate and Walnut Sauce; my son's Thai marinade; my father's Squid in Red Wine; and my Roasted Chicken Thighs with Spinach, Mushrooms and Brown Rice...with a melted cheese topping, of course. 1) I can make French bread from scratch without using a recipe. Or a timer. And it's damn good, with or without butter. 2) I have walked away from several church potluck suppers with a scraped clean dish and multiple requests for the recipe while others were busy putting away days' worth of leftovers. (At least a silver medal in the socially competitive cooking pecking order within the Southern Baptist church, for those who don't live in the Deep South, where homecooking is serious business.) Have never baked a cake that tasted right or that didn't fall/collapse or have major structural problems. Or caught a fish. And my chili tends to be too hot for anyone else to eat...wait, that's not a tragedy--more for me. Just pass the sour cream, okay?