About

I have been an avid cook ever since a visit to Buenos Aires to meet my extended family for the first time in 1978. I had never cooked before but eating in my aunt’s and cousin’s kitchens over the month of December made me fall in love with the idea of cooking and entertaining. Watching them effortlessly place course upon course in front of us on long folding tables covered by intricate heirloom tablecloths, fancy but mismatched dishware, and always fresh flowers I naively thought it looked easy, even though I had never stepped foot in the kitchen. Yet here I am, almost half a century later – an accomplished home cook. It was the power of positive thinking and at least ten thousand hours of kitchen time that made it happen!

I landed in the San Francisco after college, right at the time that Alice Waters, Jeremiah Towers, Joyce Goldstein, and Wolfgang Puck came on the culinary scene. I got inspiration from eating their food and devouring their cookbooks, bringing them to bed with me, and reading them from cover to cover. I cooked Wolfgang Puck’s filet of beef in puff pastry with bearnaise sauce (I did cry making it though), learned about how to properly dress a salad from Jeremiah, and finally understood what Mediterranean cooking was all about from Joyce. If you ever were invited to my studio apartment in the Marina, you were more than likely drunk by the time we sat down for dinner – I knew nothing about timing (that came later). But if you could find your car, you arrived home happy with a full belly and hoping for the next invitation!

I love everything about cooking. Combing through my favorite cookbooks, magazines, and websites for the perfect inspiration, shopping at the specialty stores and farmers’ markets for the freshest ingredients, and then spending the entire day in the kitchen combining these ingredients: stirring, chopping, sautéing, baking, and tasting my bounty. 

I began blogging in 2009 when I entered a contest for Food and Wine Magazine in hopes of becoming the “best home chef,” motivated by the prize of having dinner with Eric Rupert. While I did not win the title of best home chef, I got the bonus prize of being introduced to the world of food blogging. I now start again, thirteen years later, with the goal of archiving my family recipes, exploring new ones, and offering them to you in a menu format that includes stories of my life, feeding the people I love. My hope is that my words inspire you to get into the kitchen and cook for those you love too. You will find that nourishing your friends and family with the food you create is the most satisfying gift that one can give.