In my moms kitchen there was no messing around. She cooked for everyone day in and day out without skipping a beat. She was a real pleasure to watch when she was preparing the feasts for the both of us. After being in this kind of environment for so long you see where good food goes to great. It’s not always about the recipes. Although that does play a huge part, in my opinion it’s more about the love you put into the food. Yes, love was the word that explains my mothers cooking. The attention to detail was the key to her cooking great food. Whether it was her recipe or one that she inherited or found in one of her favorite magazines it was the thought, care and attention she put into it that made it great.

It didn’t matter what she was getting ready for. From the trips to the grocery store watching her select the food closely by inspecting at least a dozen choices than picking the best one, or standing looking at the meat through the glass at the butcher block, it was easy to see the difference between a great cook and a mediocre one. The careful selection of the right ingredients for each recipe was crucial to get it right. Then once those were selected, then it was time to break it all down and get out the cook ware.
So here’s how it went down. She would spend the time to get the good stuff at the store first. Then she would come home and get out all the necessary utensils. Her favorite mixer, spoons, measuring cups, knives, etc and get it all laid out.

Now here’s where it gets good. The food that is. She would take each ingredient and careful prepare it, by taking her favorite knife and cutting out the bad parts, peeling with fitness, then making sure that what ever it was that she was cutting ended up in the same size pieces. I think this is where the magic happened. The same size pieces so that every bite from that given recipe tasted the same every time. That way you could constantly improve or approve on the recipe.

Every thing she cooked was tasty and made sure that we were staying healthy and maintained our weight. If we were looking to lose weight she would cut out all the unhealthy fats and clean it up so it still tasted just as good, but just a little cleaner.

Many women say that they would like bigger breasts without really considering precisely what ‘bigger’ means to them. Even the ones who know exactly the look they aspire to - and have seen it modelled perfectly on their favorite celebrity - think in the terms that have been familiar to women since they bought their first training bra: cup size. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty of breast augmentation, surgeons generally use different terminology, and while the words ‘800cc breast augmentation’ means something very specific to a plastic surgeon, the women that the things are going into are thinking, ‘What on earth?’

Many women, when contemplating breast surgery, have a particular vision of what they would like to look like post operation, but achieving the desired look is not always straightforward. While women will think in terms of cup size, the implants that a surgeon will use to augment your breasts do not operate according to this kind of measurement. Implants are filled with liquid, usually saline or silicone gel, and so they are measured accordingly. It is estimated that each cup size you would like to increase is worth approximately 236cc, but unfortunately, this is not the exact science we might imagine it to be.

An 800cc breast augmentation, for example, will not result in the same look when implanted in different women. While an implant of that size will unquestionably result in a breast of significant size, there are many other factors that will contribute to the overall look of the augmentation. Apart from the different types of implant that are available, including shapes that can be round or teardrop shape, much of the final look will depend on the woman herself, and her original shape. For this reason, it is important to choose a breast implant based on cc measurements alone - the same implant can look vastly different when inserted into different women, depending on many factors including the patient’s weight, the amount of original breast tissue present, and the shape of the patient’s chest cavity. This is why it is immensely important to take seriously the opinion of your surgeon. He or she is a medical professional who, through experience, will be best qualified to indicate the implant most likely to achieve the look you want.

If you have a precise image of how you would like your breasts to look post surgery, it is best to provide your surgeon with visual aids, as words can create vastly different images for different people. Before your surgery, collect photos of breasts that look the way you would like to appear, so that your doctor can translate this into the material, shape and ccs that give you the breasts you’ve always wanted.

Jeff Lakie is the founder of Plastic Surgery Resources a website providing information on cosmetic surgery