Either pumpkin pie or apple pie are my favorites!

Thanksgiving is for pies in my family, any other desserts wait until Christmas.

When recipes call for you to cook an item in a pan without first adding oil, they say to toast it to indicate that you are applying dry heat to it. For example, most Indian recipes call for toasting whole spices in a dry pan before grinding. That is also why you can toast marshmallows over an open flame.

It just irritates my mouth. May be oral allergy or just a reaction to the enzymes in the pineapple. It isn’t as bad as my reaction to wine and vinegar though, so I have to see more specialists to figure that out lol.

Not really? I actually get confused if people use mixed up idioms or other weird turns of phrase. It is really only this food item in particular.

I also like my ice cream to be soup lol! Pineapple on pizza is okay, but I can only have small amounts of pineapple. The rest are odd, but at least you know what you like!

No, we grew up in the same region of the same state and haven’t moved from there. Most of our friends are native to the region as well. I have no idea why I call it something different, it is the term I have used all my life. Even my sister calls it a ‘grilled cheese’!

According to my husband and all my friends, the weirdest thing about me is my name for a sandwich.

Apparently, everyone else calls it a ‘grilled cheese’. I have always called it by it’s proper name, a ‘toasted cheese’.

If you make it in a panini press, then it is a grilled cheese. But if you make a sandwich by buttering each side and toasting it in a pan on the stove until the cheese melts, then it is a toasted cheese. But every time I say ‘toasted cheese’, people look at me as though I have grown another head.

Cooking in general, and baking in particular. It is actual fun for me, and is actually stress relief as well, because it allows me creative freedom in a medium that I apparently have natural talent in. I make my own bread every week for sandwiches, bake snacks for my weekly board game meetup, volunteer to make birthday cakes for friends and family, and give out giant boxes of cookies every Christmas. I am always inventing and researching new recipes, converting recipes to accommodate various dietary needs, and trying to find ways to use ingredients I have lying around in a way that will ensure I don’t have food going to waste. There is nothing better to me than when I figure out what each recipe needs at each step and why, and watching it all come together.

I grew up learning to bake from my grandmother, and I inherited her passion and apparently her natural talent for it. I have a lot of recipes memorized, can eyeball teaspoon and tablespoon measures of ingredients with good accuracy, and can somehow get anywhere from 5-10% more out of any given recipe. If a cookie recipe makes 5 dozen I get 6 or 7, even if I am not skimping on size. If I make bread, it rises quicker and larger, even if it is cold. Making cake, I always have extra batter for a couple of cupcakes. It works out though, because I can taste test everything and throw any extra cookies in the freezer so that way I am better prepared for Christmas.

It is always amazing to see someone’s face light up when they get baked goods they love, especially if their diets mean they don’t often get to enjoy them. For example, several of my friends have Celiac, and seeing how happy they are to get things like butter cookies, crinkly-top brownies, or gingerbread is just amazing. It is an easy way to make people feel included and happy, and I get to have fun in the kitchen while doing it.