I'm a grandmother of three whose been married for 41 years, lived in three different countries, and five different states. I've loved to cook/bake since I was old enough to climb up on the cabinets to get my ingredients and tools. I especially love baking and sharing my wares. We lived in Russia for 10 years working in both Russian and international schools. It was there that I taught a cooking class and grappled with the challenge of finding ingredients. Still, it seemed to be a popular class. Born and reared in CA but living in the Midwest and loving it. I guess my favorite thing to make is cookies. I love mixing them up, sampling the dough, decorating them, sharing them, displaying them on trays, and, yes, eating them! Also like to prepare crockpot meals. Makes me feel good about getting something healthy to the table with minimum time spent. Oh, and can't forget soups... that's where I can really get creative! Guess we don't have many traditions. When our sons were little I always made very special heart shortbread cookies decorate with a tiny rose and each child's name on their cookie. Now we all live in different cities, but when we get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we all seem to understand that we will have Michael's deep-fried turkey, my green bean casserole, and now Mark's corn souffle. I feel like I've been blessed with many cooking triumphs, but the best is that I seemed to have instilled a love for baking in our second little grandaughter's heart. I love it when she is at my house and she says "Grammie, let's make cookies!" Now I understand she has actually started baking on her own at home. That's a very rewarding triumph! I've had a few of those too. The worst I can remember was in our early years of marriage when we had guests over for dinner and I decided to make a chicken, rice, mushroom soup casserole. It had turned out very well for me numerous times, but I doubled the recipe that time and cooked til the rice was done. I was so embarrased when I saw that the chicken was raw in the center. Thankfully, the rest of the details of that faux pas are blurred in my memory.