I grew up on a farm in North Dakota and was born in Rugby, (the Geographical Center of North America) North Dakota. VERY unfancy BUT centered.

My single mother raised five kids (I am the youngest) on a music teacher’s salary. I often think of my mother as Fraulein Maria (Joline Marie Dunn) from “The Sound of Music” because she would burst into song throughout the day and start singing at the most obnoxious moments. She also played Julie Andrews in a musical theatre role on stage for The Sound of Music before she sang in the Seattle Opera…. all this was before she gave up her career to raise my siblings and me. As enchanting as that sounds, my mother was no cook.

I remember having my fifth-grade birthday party and we all sat down for dinner after opening presents. A few minutes into the meal all my friends start crying and asking for water claiming, “WOW this spaghetti & meatballs is HOT”! Mom looks in the garbage can to find she dumped a jar of hot sauce in the pot of noodles instead of tomatoes sauce – CLASSIC mistake.

The second childhood story which made me realize I need to learn how to cook was when mom made us five kids a pan of Rice Krispie Treats and everyone got a real bad stomachache. Mom accidently grabbed a can of oven cleaner instead of cooking spray when spraying the pan to bake the treats in the oven. We saw the poisonous can (similar packaging aka a spray can?!) sitting near the bottle of vegetable oil in the cupboard and immediately knew what she did wrong. RIP to having a clean oven – we cleaned out our digestive systems.