@MotleyCook
I'm living happily ever after with my husband and daughter in the Denver/Boulder area of Colorado, USA. In my professional life, I've worked as a technical writer, an incentive tour developer, and an administrative assistant working in Germany. A return to technical writing or some other form of paid employment is in the cards for the near future, but in the meantime, I'm still enjoying cooking and the other joys of life on the home front. With regard to cooking, my two formative influences were my grandfather and my mother. After his retirement, my grandfather loved to cook and experiment with food, and from him I inherited my love of adventure. In contrast, my working mother was a practical, just-get-it-on-the-dang-table-five-minutes-ago kind of cook, and from her I inherited my desire for efficiency. Ethnically, I have been most influenced by German, British, Italian, and Asian ingredients and cooking techniques -- again, due to family background. I haven't yet dabbled much with Mexican, Indian, or other cuisines, but they're on my list, especially since obtaining exotic ingredients is generally easy where we live. IMHO, RecipeZaar is fabulous. Most of the recipes I've tried are good, comments are copious, and the web site is feature-full and easy to navigate. I use RecipeZaar to zero in on recipes for using up leftovers and odd pantry items. (Just this morning I found a peanut brittle recipe to consume that stray bag of salted Spanish peanuts!) I also use it to find recipes for special occasions; for a variety of reasons, I did not inherit much in the way of cherished family recipes, so I'm grateful to the RecipeZaar community for sharing theirs!