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My love affair with cooking started long ago, but I remember it so clearly. When I was about six years old, my mom was leaving for work early one morning and I told her I was hungry. “So cook something!” she answered. I vividly remember pulling up a chair to the stove and turning it on with a match. (I know—dangerous, but it was a different time!) I selected the smallest frying pan I could fi nd because I wanted to cook one egg. Not eggs, just one egg. I cracked the egg on the edge of the pan, as I’d seen my mom do effortlessly many times before, and emptied it into the frying pan.

Of course, the pan was full of eggshell. I didn’t use any butter or oil, so the egg stuck everywhere. I can’t even remember now what it tasted like, but I can recall the feeling of accomplishment I had after cooking that egg. I found it empowering and energizing. I was hooked from that day forward.

I wanted to learn everything! I wanted my little EASY-BAKE Oven to make casseroles like my mom’s. I wanted my lemonade stand to have more flavor options than just lemon. And for Christmas I wanted my own hand mixer! I eventually graduated from cooking an egg to making my own spaghetti sauce.

I have my family to thank for my cooking skills and the inspiration they gave me to begin my own culinary journey. My dad was a big believer in never eating fast food, so we were not allowed to have it. And nothing ever went to waste. I grew up on a ranch outside of Corpus Christi, Texas, and throughout my childhood my family grew our own vegetables and raised our own chickens. Every day my mom cooked with garden-fresh calabasa (squash), carrots, and beans, and freshly laid eggs. Every last bit of that garden’s harvest was always used, and any trimmings went right to the compost pile. She worked full-time as a special education teacher; took care of my oldest sister, who is developmentally disabled; and had three other daughters to drive all over town to cheerleading, band practice, work, and everywhere else busy teenage girls need to go. But in spite of it all, she always managed to have dinner on the table every night at 6P.M. for my dad. This was such an important lesson in my life. The fact that my mother clearly reveled in taking care of her family in addition to having a career inspired me to be the same way. I cannot count the number of times that I’ve found myself in a Gucci dress and heels—with full hair and makeup, about to run out to an event—pulling a roasted chicken out of the oven in order to make sure that my family is fed before leaving the house to face a hundred photographers on a red carpet.