As anyone who's visited Florida can tell you, the temperatures stay pretty hot in the Sunshine State, especially in the spring and summer months. So Walt Disney World Resort's (WDW) team of horticulture specialists have quite a task during the EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival — an event celebrating all things that bloom and blossom, which runs from early March through early July.

On How I Met Your Father, Hilary Duff spends time with friends at Manhattan bars and trendy dinner parties. But in real life, the 35-year-old mom of three says she's become "a short-order chef" in her own kitchen.

"It's tough. Some days are tougher than others,” she tells Yahoo Life of cooking for Luca, 10; Banks, 4; and Mae, 1.

Gumbo is the state cuisine of Louisiana, so on a recent trip to New Orleans, trying as many gumbo recipes as possible was at the top of my must-do list. The flavorful soup, made from meat or shellfish (sometimes both), a thickener and the "holy trinity" — celery, bell peppers and onions — is typically served with a scoop of rice. A steaming bowl of gumbo is a delightful way to start a meal in NOLA, but the most spectacular version I tried was chef Eric Cook's recipe, served up at his restaurant, Gris-Gris.

As the fourth of 12 children, Dolly Parton spent lots of time watching her mother cook, but it's a recipe from her dad that she often uses to start her 9 to 5. "When we were growing up," she recalls, "sometimes when Momma was sick or having a baby, Daddy would help with the cooking."

Parton still makes her dad's milk gravy (a white gravy made with flour and milk and typically served with sausage and biscuits) for breakfast "at least once a week," she tells Yahoo Life. "My daddy was left-handed, so when he would make that gravy, he would call it 'left-handed gravy,' so we loved Daddy's left-handed gravy."