I grew up in beautiful Seattle, WA. I moved to Los Angeles, CA when I was 18, where I lived for ten years, learning from my many adventures. Now I'm back in the Pacific NW, living the good life surrounded by my wonderful family and running a business with my beau, Beau. FLAVORFUL, fresh-from-the-farmer's-market food, anything that metamorphosizes in the oven, and unites us in the universal pleasure of taste, reminding us what our taste buds are for. My parents taught me that food not only brings people together, it connects us with our heritage and with cultures around the world. They deeply enjoy great food and have always had dinner parties, so I learned by helping them. We were pescatarians, using organic, whole foods whenever possible and I can adapt pretty much anything to be super healthy. MOM: vegetarian stews and curries, cheesecake, traditional Ashkenazic Jewish food. DAD: grilled anything especially salmon, breakfast. When I was 16, my parents took a romantic weekend getaway while I had some parties that got a little out of hand. My parents were due back just in time to celebrate the holiday of Purim. In order to offset the damage, I baked my great-grandmother's hammantachen (which you can find among my recipes). This made everyone very happy, and I learned my lesson: The way to anyone's heart can be found through sharing deliciousness. I am an experimental cook, so lots of stuff didn't always turn out. I made peanut butter cookies that tasted like playdough (I used unsalted butter and overestimated how much salt I had to replace), I made lasagna forgetting to add salt, thinking the sauce was already salted. I've burned so many pots cooking way way to high. I tried to make bread with just flour and water which became a brick of paste. But now I use allrecipes so I have endless recipes to inspire my successes!