I love food. I love sharing food. And I love few things more than having a big group of friends over for a home cooked meal, sitting us all down at the table, with cloths napkins and all, to take a pause from our busy lives.

I also have an abiding love affair with kitchens. Kitchens are the heart and soul of any house - the gathering place where stories are told, lessons are shared and, of course, meals are made.

As a child of traveling parents, I have been cooking most of my life. Granted, microwaving frozen peas isn't exactly an art, but it was a start, one from which I have never looked back. Cooking is creative and experimental, and it often yields fabulous rewards.

My recipes are not a science of exact measurements. They are guides that will hopefully inspire you, as they have many of my friends and family, to make them your own, to tweak them, adapt them and improve them and, most importantly, share them.