Well, I’m back home in the U.S. after spending a little over a year in Florence, Italy, where I fulfilled my dream of going to culinary...

You’ll hear many times that traveling in Puglia, the southeastern heel of Italy's boot, is easiest with a car. This is true. It gives you...

Other than mounds of orecchiette and secluded rocky beaches, I didn’t know what to expect from Puglia, the southern region at the heel of...

If there’s anything I’ve done more times during my month of WWOOFing than hug the Bernese mountain dogs or squint out at Florence in...

One year ago, I came to culinary school in Florence seeking a change. Now I’m finished with classes and am volunteering on a farm in the...

Last Friday I took my first walk in nearly two months. It was May 1, and the Italian government announced that people would be finally...

If you are my mom, my friend, my mom's friend, or someone who likes pictures of pasta, you may have participated in my quarantine cooking...

I’ve been joking (or not so joking) to my friends and family that we all need things to look forward to these days. For some people (my...

Olive Garden’s slogan used to be, “When you’re here, you’re family.” It suggests that your meal isn’t just about the food; it’s about who...

I would’ve thought that suddenly finding myself living through an earth-altering pandemic would change my priorities. Maybe I’d ponder...

Back in January, during the kind of sunset stroll in Florence that always makes me sigh with admiration and fantasize about making...

In the fall, when Florence's supermarkets and pastry shops were full of schiacciata con l'uva — the city's famous flatbread studded with...

It seems that all of my cooking tasks this week were designed to work my muscles — not just my culinary mind and physical posture, but my...

I had some doubts about the two classes I'd be taking at the end of my fall semester in culinary school. First, there would be Cooking...

I usually feel guilty about doing nothing. It seems like doing nothing (i.e. watching TV, reading a book, lying down on my bed and...

October was not my month. After a week of eating everything in sight in Sicily, I returned to school at the beginning of the month to...

There was blood everywhere. Pooled on the ground and into buckets. Crusted on fishermen's boots and in their fingernails. Swirling in...

I was so unsure of myself the first few days of working in a restaurant kitchen that I might as well have never cooked anything before in...

It involves grapes. Tons and tons of sweet, squishy, in-season grapes. It's called schiacciata all'uva, and it's a fruity twist on...

I realized many moons ago that my mom will always love me no matter what, that she is the most important person in my life, and that I...