I'm an art teacher whose main goal in cooking is to make something healthy, fun, and new (once in a while) without making too much of a mess...or setting the house on fire. I love to make Italian food and Asian food, especially when we have a gathering of friends. I've traveled a bit and lived abroad, and some of the best memories I have of some of the places I've been have been of the wonderful food and the lovely people who've made it! My cousins in Italy love stuffing whoever drops by with acres of food. It's true what they say about Italians; you can't leave without eating something! That must be where my mother got it. My dad's side of the family consists of standing rib roasts at Christmas, lovely parties with large families, and excellent baking. My husband's family has Japanese heritage, so they make great things happen especially around New Year's. We have a lot of fun with the recipes that have been passed down over a century. I've made some excellent roasts, and some of my experiments have turned out quite good, though I'm really still learning. When I lived in Florence I had to survive on food from the markets and try to cook without the internet in my apartment to help me...and I had the time of my life! That's where I learned to make my excellent eggplant parmesan and limoncello...though it seems like some of my best works are the ones I have memorized. I once tried to make twelve dozen chocolate chip cookies without dividing the batches...it was only after I got six sticks of butter and six cups of sugar into my kitchenaid bowl that I wondered, "Hmm, how am I going to do this?" Fortunately, they turned out okay. My tragedies usually consist of small mistakes that only I notice, but they certainly are frequent!