Top Ten List of meals you've made with love for someone or were made with love, for you.

1. The pasta dinner – tortellini and white sauce for my future, unknown at the time, husband after the Patriots beat the Bears in the 1986 Superbowl.
   
2. Clam chowder on Christmas eve as an alternative to my families tradition of oyster stew and specifically, the year I made it in Chicago with $75 worth of clams I had to shuck myself.
   
3. The last two breakfasts that my husband and I made for my son Chris before we left for college – both days poached eggs on toast – one of the days he ate 7 poached eggs and would have made more, but we ran out of eggs.
   
4. The 17 tacos my college boyfriend ate at my mom’s house on one of his first visits to my house.
   
5. The boiled dinner that my future, unknown at the time, husband made me where he tricked me into eating a turnip by telling me it was a potato, which made me cry.
   
6. The “blood sausage” that my Mutti made me eat because she thought it was good for me even though I really didn’t want to try it or like it.
   
7. The special sauce on Christmas Eve served with the venison my Vati had hunted.
   
8. Reindeer in Norway – cooked by Wenke and John Erik followed by aquavit.
   
9. Grilled cheese and tomato soup that I would cook for my two boys, when my limit was one loaf of bread worth of grilled cheese sandwiches’ – sometimes as many as 18!
   
10. My first anniversary wedding cake that I served on my fancy china with all the bells and whistled.
    
11. Opps – I came up with 11 – the murder mystery dinner I prepared with my husband for 3 other couples – veal marsala and bananas foster all embedded in a gangster theme including playing dress up in my flapper dress.