Barbara tells us that fun in her family centered on food and some of her best memories are of those family get-togethers. Her Polish grandparents, Busia and Dziadzi, both loved to cook and made their ethnic specialties. Her Grandma Burns, as they affectionately called her dad's mother, made her living as a cook for the priests at St. Mary's Catholic Church.

Barbara came to work for Plano Profile in 1986. In 1989, we did a readership survey that indicated overwhelmingly that our readers wanted a cooking feature including recipes. Editor Mike Newman took a look at the readership results, then looked at her and said "you're it ... you're the new food writer." It started out as a one page column, with a small photo of the food, an even smaller one of the cook we were featuring, and a third to a half of a page of recipe(s). We had no idea how popular it would become ... or at least, Barbara didn't. Sixteen years later, it is now a 3 - 4 full-page feature, with at least two full-color photos, and continues to be one of the favorite features in the magazine.

Barbara says, "being the social person I am, I love the opportunities to meet the most interesting people in our community and being able to tell their story in print, even when they think they don't have a story to tell!   Everyone has a story to tell ... they just don't always know it. And I'm pleased to say that I have also become close friends with a few of the people I've interviewed over the years. Now that's rewarding!"