I was destined to be a cook! Cooking is in my blood, both sides of my family are filled with cooks and restaurateurs. Some of my fondest memories are of spending summers hanging out in the kitchen of my aunt's little restaurant watching my Gram cook up delicious food. She made some of the best Sunday Gravy I've ever tasted, and her bread was out of this world! I have two teenagers at home and I'm trying to get a personal chef/catering business off the ground and the pace of my life can be pretty insane, so cooking is like meditation for me. There is nothing that relaxes me like spending the day in my kitchen cooking for my loves. My greatest joy is that my kids share my passion for good food and all are on the way to becoming great cooks themselves. I love to challenge myself in the kitchen and I get bored with eating or cooking the same things over and over so I love to make EVERYTHING! But by far my favorite thing to make is anything Indian. It is the one thing I could make every day and never be bored of it. We eat a lot of vegetarian meals even though we're meat eaters and I love experimenting with tofu and other non-animal proteins. With my busy life, my slow cooker is my friend and I use it often so I love devising and adapting recipes for it. I always get excited when it's cooler weather here in Florida so I can bake. Every holiday each family member gets to choose the dish that is a "must have". You know that one food that makes Christmas feel like Christmas or Thanksgiving feel like Thanksgiving. When we have other people over they get to choose a dish as well. It has been really neat to watch how everyone's "must haves" change over time. The 100+, last minute, destined for failure catering job that went off without a hitch made me feel pretty good about myself. I grew up in the South, with all that delicious Southern food, so making those a little healthier always feels like a bit of a triumph.