My name is Karla Begnaud, née Avendaño. I was born in Costa Rica, Central America. I grew up in a family where cooking meals was a daily activity and baking was just a bonus. My parents, my grandparentss, my aunts and my uncles all love great food.

I moved to Texas back in 1998 where I met Kevin (my husband for 14 years). We're happily married and we have three wonderful children (two girls and a boy) . I own a registered home daycare and we have 10 children (my 3 kids included) so I stay pretty busy Monday thru Friday.

My husband was born in Texas but grew up in Louisiana. He likes to cook so we love to combine our two cultures and background to improve and/or create dishes. For example he used to cook his Gumbo (which was pretty good) with frozen veggies and dry spices but I introduced him to fresh veggies and fresh spices, of course!!!, and yes, he know it's more work but guess what? ... it's totally worth it because it's so much better.

I remember being in the kitchen with my Mom since I was 2 years old. I was always very curious and asked lots of questions about the food and dishes she was preparing. My Mom used to bake a lot so I learned the process of baking a basic yellow cake from scratch early on. One time, when I was about 7 years old, me and my brothers decided to surprise our parents with a cake to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Since it was a surprise we didn't want anybody to know so we used a toy mixer to make the batter in my brothers' room without any measuring cups so the cake was hard as a rock because we added too much flour and over-cooked it. Our parents loved the surprise but since it wasn't edible we had to throw it away. After that my Mom said I could use the mixer and make use of the kitchen but only under her or the maid's supervision. So I started asking my grandma (my Mom's Mom) for recipes to start making different kinds of cakes and desserts and, to this day, I still have her recipes. When I moved to Houston she sent me some of her favorite recipe books and, yes, I still have them with me.

I'm enrolled at Escoffier Online International Culinary Academy and I'm working towards earning my certification to become a Chef. I want to start my own business as a Personal Chef and to teach cooking classes. Cooking is my passion and I can't wait to be able to share my creations and knowledge with my clients. My goal is to graduate this year, hopefully before October. Who knows maybe right before my birthday my husband and I can take a trip to Chicago to get my certificate. Yay!!!

This is a picture of my London Broil Assignment: