As an artist, I love being creative in many ways....cooking affords me the opportunity to be creative on a regular basis. I love to cook for my friends and family. My favorite food in the world at the moment is Thai chicken with peanut sauce. I also love making appetizers. My mother is an excellent cook and she has instilled the love for home made good food into my lifestyle. I love to get my kids involved in the kitchen as well. When everybody works together to pull off a meal, it always seems to taste better. I think my kids try more things when they have helped to make it. I love it when I tweak a recipe and it turns out. The best triumphs for me are at dinner parties and timing everything to be ready at the same time! New Years Eve Party 2007/2008 I was making a familiar chocolate turtle tart recipe. The filling is simple: whipping cream and chocolate chips. I was a little short on the whipping cream so I substituted half and half and didn't have an exact measurement on the chocolate chips. The filling never set up and it was still liquid after 6 hours. Lesson learned: never substitute 1/2& 1/2 for whipping cream when making a turtle tart. Thankfully we had all the christmas candies and cookies as a backup for sweets.