I've been married for 26 years. I've taught high school English for 15 years. I've been cooking since I could toddle into the kitchen with mom. Oh yeah. I'm a guy. Casseroles and hearty stove-top dinners. For 25 years I've been the primary cook at home, and my kids (all five of them) love it when I invent another pantry-based casserole. I am the 12th of 16 kids, so there are numerous cooking stories with mom from all of us. My favorite was her assembly line A-frame gingerbread houses. She'd get the house parts baked with whoever was helping that day, then set up a line of stations down the lengthy dining room table. Using royal icing, one would place the front and back pieces, the next station would add the roof pieces, then the roof icing, candy pieces, etc. from all the other stations. We'd make peek-a-boo eggs at Easter the same way. The roasted pork loins for my daughter's wedding reception. Simple, beyond delicious, and cheap. The turkey with the giblet bag (plastic) left inside roasted in an oven in the corner of which was a pile of some spill that should have been cleaned but was overlooked. That plastic, ashy, smoky turkey didn't even make it to the table. Blech.