I’m an Italian American who loves to cook and entertain. It doesn’t matter if I’m feeling happy, stressed, sad, or recovering from an operation or two, I cook. I enjoy entertaining and sharing my creations with friends and neighbors.
I also love to read cookbooks. In fact, I read them like a person would read a novel. Back in the day I had hundreds of cookbooks. Today, I have scaled my collection back to less than 50. Of course that doesn’t count the cooking magazines that I read cover-to-cover.
A few favorites that grace my kitchen bookshelf currently are Culinaria I
taly – Pasta, Pesto, Passion, The Silver Spoon Pulgia, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, The Food of Italy, Everyone is Italian on Sunday by Rachael Ray, Vegetables from an Italian Garden, and the Amici D’Italia Cookbook of recipes (1981-2011) from the Italian Club’s members.
We have our own garden and use the fresh fruits and vegetables when I cook, and scraps/waste goes in the compost for next year’s garden.
I don’t restrict my reading to just cookbooks — I enjoy fiction and non-fiction books of all kinds. There is a list of some of my favorite books with an Italian theme.
Travel is my other love. Over the years I’ve enjoyed Europe the most, Italy in particular. My Italian family comes from Palermo, Sicily and Adelphia, Bari in the Southern Italy region of Puglia. So quite a few of my recipes have a Southern Italy “heart” to them.
Not only do we enjoy food and travel, my husband and I have learned an appreciation of wine over the years. When we moved to the outskirts of Portland Oregon from Southern California we learned that the Willamette Valley is rich with wineries. So for the past ten years we’ve been doing our best to visit them all – so many wineries, so little time. We also enjoy Italian wines, so when we’re there we sample a lot of wine and ship the best varietals home.
I journal my travels every year. Last year’s journal can be found at Christina’s Travel Blog. Journal entries show up in reverse order. Our 2015 journey begins here.
The primary reason I started this food blog was to give me something to do while recovering from a back injury. (Details.) The bonus is that I am able to share my love of food with others and have a diary of my favorite recipes.
Hope you enjoy traveling with me through my food adventures.