I grew up in resteraunts as my parents owned two when I was young.During highschool and college I worked in various restaraunts and catering companies,learned quite a few tricks of the trade. I've always been the entertainer, having friends and family over for huge feasts all the time.I'm always making up new things to cook and bake. My friends and family usually call me when they want a recipe or advice (especially my bro!) and I always get requests to bring certain dishes to friends parties etc. I love anything Italian!!! but my absoulute fav thing to cook or bake are desserts!I like to bake different cheesecakes, and pastries. I usually try new things each year, but my mom and I always make thumbprint cookies at xmas. And can peaches and pears at the end of summer. I just moved to a new house with plenty of apple and cherry trees, so I am now finding new recipes for those! And I just started a large veggie garden so looking forward to new traditions with my 2 kids :) Just recently a friend of mine was putting on her sisters wedding shower, I asked if she needed help,so I came over early to help prepare. And thank goodness for that! She bought a bunch of fruit to put out for fruit trays because the grocery store she went to lost her order and she was stuck making it herself last minute. I took care of it while she did everthing else since I had a few years in the catering buiss. All the guests at the party kept commenting on how nice the fruit trays were and where she ordered it from! those were the best compliments I can remember. Other than that, my new thing is making up different cheesecakes, and friends are raving over those! One time while I was at work for a catering company I had to bake three lasagne's, all was good, threw in the oven for 1 hour or so, right before the order was going out, I checked on them and the oven wasn't turned on!!!! oh my, was I in trouble.....we all laughed about it later though. At home I recently made up puttenesca sauce to have with pasta, as I was putting the hot chilis in, I opened up the wrong end of the jar and the whole thing went in, i tried scooping mosts of it out but it was way tooo spicy, even for my hubby who loves it hot!