It�s not everyone�s grandmother who cooked for a Hungarian Baron, but that was part of Teri Valentine�s inspiration. �We spent the whole summer with her when I was in third or fourth grade. She was obsessed with cooking and made everything from scratch according to her own recipes. She was very independent -- she didn�t even have a washing machine, because no machine was going to tell her when her clothes were clean!�

Her grandmother�s influence was so strong that when Teri was doing a cooking project in Girl Scouts and the recipe called for canned ingredients, �I cried because I didn�t want to use anything canned.�

Her mother and stepfather were in the wholesale meat business in Sacramento, so �we knew everyone in the restaurant business, and we ate very well,� Teri remembers.

The Perfect Bite Co. grew out of Teri�s experiences as a catering manager for Disneyland and owning TasteBuds, a restaurant, catering and to-go company. She knows both the satisfactions and the tribulations of those businesses.

�I had no idea what I was getting into when I started catering. I just loved to cook. My first breakfast catering job, I squeezed the orange juice, using a little hand juicer that did half an orange at a time�for 500 people�.two days in a row!�

Teri�s husband John wanted to own a bar, so they opened a bar at the Toluca Lake Tennis Club, near Warner Brothers movie studio, and also opened the TasteBuds restaurant. �We put our bite-sized signature pastries in the pastry basket. They were compliments of the house.�

The Pastry Kisses were wildly popular; people started coming in especially for them. When Teri, John and their partner Joe Forristal solved the technical difficulties of delivering their delicious pastry pockets in oven-safe, disposable (and recyclable) baking trays, Joe booked The Perfect Bite Co. for a booth at the Fancy Food Show. They were a huge hit.

Pastry Kisses are made in smaller batches, using all natural ingredients. The dairy products have no hormones in them. The flavors are classics with a twist. �We want dinner guests to say, �What is in this wonderful pastry?� so that whether they�re a home cook or a caterer or a restaurant owner, they�ll be proud of this product.�

�Baking them yourself makes a huge difference�the fresh smell and taste. The main thing is that we never compromise�it�s all about the flavor. They taste as if you have a cook in the back doing this for you, so even though our Pastry Kisses are very little work, it feels like you�ve done everything yourself!�