Secret Agent

about me

I was a Navy Brat so I grew up all over the world. My mother was from Philadelphia and her mother and grandmother and her sister were greatly influential in honing my cooking and baking skills. They all owned or worked in Italian Delis in Philadelphia or were trained Wilton bakers as I am. My fondest childhood memories are of my Great-Grandmother, Grandmother, Mom, Aunts, cousins and me all gathered together in my Grandmothers house making pasta. TONS of it. My maternal grandfather comes from a family of liquor makers, Tuaca. I am almost finished writing a cookbook which is stuffed with family recipes - 6 generations of them! It is bringing back so many fond memories! My favorite Aunt died recently and I inherited all of the family recipes and I am thrilled to have them.

My father is from Oklahoma and his mom introduced me to the country style of cooking, country hams and red-eye gravy and big fluffy buttermik biscuits and her corn side-dish. When Dad retired from the Navy we moved to the beautiful Jersey Shore (exit 98). Now I live in the Seattle area, the beautiful Pacific Northwest!

I feel very fortunate to have been able to live in so many places all over the world. DH and I have a small internet Travel Agency specializing in Disney World travel and cruises world wide. Family travel, Senior Travel and group travel are a specialty. Since fuel has gone through the roof I now specialize in Home Port Cruises, hopefully no more than a managable drive from your home so we can do away with airfare!

My pet peeves about cooking are recipe reviews where the reviewer says, "I made the recipe exactly as written EXCEPT yada yada yada" and I don't like suggestive names or titles such as, "Better Than Sex". I don't know why anyone would eat anything that is 'sinful' or 'decadent' since decadent is described as being decaying. Also, PAP-RI-KA only has 3 syllables. VINAIGRETTE is pronounced vin-a-grette, not vinager-ette. It's mas-car-pone not mars-ca-pone. Oh well, I make as many, or more, faux pas as the next guy!

Favorite Foods:

My favorite meal is Prime Rib (4 ribs) with Yorkshire puddings and fresh green beans. I love NY style pizza and bagels, West Philadelphia (no wiz) cheese steaks with onions and white American or Provolone. For a gathering I like to make sausage and peppers, my world famous apple cake (hubby says it's his favorite),fried chicken (DH says it't the best ever) and oven fried chicken, Fantabulous low carb cole slaw (most people say it is their fave and DH says it's the best ever) and stromboli and lasagne. I love canning and so does DH! I love jams and dilly beans and apple butter. We like hot and spicy foods. I can drink fire and wash it down with molten lava!

I love baking so much! It relaxes me and I love making Italian cookies like pizzelles, bowties, strufoli, biscotti, and so on. One day DH asked if I was trying to kill him with cake. I had to back off a little. Now I make him cookies (he loves my high school home ec recipe for Snickerdoodles, ginger snaps, Italian Wedding Cakes, and his all time faves, chocolate chip with walnuts from the back of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate morsels package)and hide them in the freezer. I also make whacky cakes since they are the right size for us. I hope to post all of the recipes I learned from my family.

http://www.MouseEarTravel.com