I was born in Denver at St. Joseph’s Hospital. My son was also born there. (In fact, my family goes back well over 100 years in Colorado so I am the proud owner of Colorado Pioneer plates.) I went to parochial schools until my sophomore year in high school, where I transferred to George Washington. It was there that I attended a Foods Class taught by Mrs. Deutsch. While my mother and aunt were great inspirations for my love of cooking, it was really Mrs. Deutsch who sealed the deal. She was a wonderful teacher and I loved her class.
After high school, I attended a local business college for 8 months and then started working. I’ve had a varied career these last forty years, working for an insurance company, a police department, a fire department, a local luggage manufacturer and then I entered banking, where I have spent the bulk of my career. While working in an office has always paid the bills, my passion is cooking and eating out.
I have been married for 34 years to a wonderful man – Norm Smith. I have one biological son, Jarrod, who just turned 39. Together with Norm, we have an extended family that includes four kids, four kids-in-law and six (soon to be 7) grandkids and 1 great-grandchild. Rounding out this group is a mischievous Maltipoo named Cricket.
Over the years, I have taken 39 Cooking Classes – including one in Tuscany, Italy and one in Russia (in a small river cruise) as well as several in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I was recently involved in a group in Genesee called the Genesee Women’s Forum and while a member of that group, I gave a number of Cooking Demos. These seemed to be very well received by the members.
We have a wonderful home in Genesee and over the years we have remodeled the kitchen to include a double oven/double convection oven, a microwave/convection oven, as well as granite countertops. For this Christmas, my husband bought me a 6-burner Viking Cook Top which was just installed on January 5th! Talk about excited.
I want everyone to know that the recipes found on this blog are not original recipes. I have been collecting recipes for over 40 years and plan to share only ‘the best of the best’ of these.
