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I add warmed tomato slice and canned chopped green chilies, along with American cheese and wheat bread.

I can't believe the jello salads I used to eat, especially that one with cream cheese, cottage cheese,pineapple and nuts with lime jello. What incredible fat content it had. I haven't bought jello in years. I don't do those recipes for chicken with canned cream soups anymore either. I don't remember the last time I made meat loaf. I make a similar version but make it in stuffed vegetables without tomato sauce.

The first time I was cooking for my French husband, I asked him if he wanted French dressing on his salad and he asked me, "What's that?" I brought the bottle out of the refrigerator and showed him that bright orange stuff with French Dressing on the label. He looked a little apalled and said, "Why don't I make the dressing?" which he did with olive oil, vinegar and digon mustard. It was an eye opener for me. That's the only way I make it now except I add some dry parsely and garlic. I love to use balsamic vinegar but he doesn't like it as it is too sweet for him, the purist. For potato salad I marinade the potatoes first in the basic dressing above and then mix in just a little mayo with maybe a splash of pickle juice.

I like most desserts but I hate it when they put the decorative raspberry liquid stuff around the plate and I get it on my chocolate cake. I don't like raspberry anything-those tiny little seeds irritate me. I rarely meet a dessert that I don't like.

I'm a former operating room nurse who discovered food and wine in a totally new way when I married a Frenchman and moved to France. I have to say my life opened up here. I love photography, cooking, cookbooks and am trying to learn new French recipes at least once a week. Hard to beat the outdoor markets here.

My husband brought a cheap set of forks and knives with him when we married. I hate those forks! They bend very easily, look ugly and just in general sort of ruin my meal so I never use them. I also only want a glass wine glass with wine, not an ordinary water glass. And I hate getting some sort of cold drink, such as a chilled wine, in a glass just out of a dishwasher still hot. I've had that at several restaurants lately.

Chicken or steak grilled on the barbie, home made ice cream, potato salad, fresh sliced tomatoes, bowls of sliced melon, especially canteloupe, wonderful red cherries that I eat until I'm sick, peaches, nectarines. It's so nice to see the fruit of summer after a long winter.

Being from Texas I miss Mexican food and barbeque-not to mention being able to enter a 7-11 at any time night or day and getting a Diet Coke with crushed ice or a Slurpee.