( CNN ) -- More than two years after undergoing a landmark , near-total face transplant at the Cleveland Clinic , Connie Culp said Monday she was happy with the transformation . `` I can smell now , '' the grandmother told CNN . `` I can eat steak , I can eat almost any solid foods -- so it 's all getting better . '' Culp recently met with the family of the donor , Anna Kasper of Lakewood , Ohio , who had worked in a nursing home and whose donated body parts helped 50 people . `` It was scary at first , but we had a really good time and they explained to me what happened to ( the donor ) and they were just so sweet , '' Culp said . `` I mean , she was a nurse in a rest home and she was a donor from the beginning so it was easy for them to make the decision . '' Culp said Kasper 's family told her the two do not look much like each other . `` They said the only resemblance is my nose , '' she said . Instead , her face reflects a combination of Kasper 's and her own before it was disfigured in 2004 by a shotgun blast that shattered her nose , cheeks and upper lip . `` I think my face is actually starting to come back a little bit , '' Culp said Monday . She received Kasper 's nose , upper lip and cheekbones in a 22-hour operation on December 10 , 2008 -- the first of 30 surgical procedures . Though her sense of feeling has gotten stronger in her face , her sense of humor has remained intact . Asked how she is feeling , she answered , `` Like everybody else is -- I 'm trying to stay warm . '' But Culp 's medical odyssey is not over . Her continuing recuperative regimen includes taking anti-rejection medication and doing exercises to strengthen her facial muscles , she said . `` I pronounce the vowels really strongly , like AHHHHHH , '' she said . Culp expressed gratitude to the many people who have written her expressing their support and to whom she is trying to respond with notes of her own . `` It 's awesome and I 'm still signing them , '' she said . `` I just have n't sent them all out yet , but I 'm working on it . ''
`` I can smell now ; I can eat steak , '' transplant recipient exults . Culp met with the family of the woman whose face was transplanted . How 's she doing ? `` Like everybody else , I 'm trying to stay warm , '' she says .