I'm a artist, writer and designer who moved to Italy to study art. I fell in love with an Italian and the Italian way of life, so I decided to stay. I love doing anything creative, including cooking. I also love finding new, interesting ingredients and tricks in the kitchen. Buon appetito! I'm a fruit and veggie fanatic. I especially love green things. I love making warm and cold salads using ancient grains like farro / spelt and barley. I'm crazy about good olive oil, as I think it's the best solution to overall health in the marketplace. We often use our gigantic fireplace to grill over wood. I have a lot of time, so I don't mind recipes that require a lot of work or a long time to cook. The only things I ever saw my mother prepare were steamed broccoli and eggs. My dad is the cook in the house, and I've always enjoyed that. I've had a lot of experiences with foods from different cultures. I love finding great, authentic recipes that I can make at home. Helping to prepare and jar 810 kilos, more than 1780 pounds, of the best tomatoes and tomato sauce I've ever had in a non-stop period of 24 hours last summer. Also, I went mushroom picking with an expert in Sweden in the biggest mushroom season anyone had seen in years. We collected over 40 varieties, about half of which were edible, and made everything we could possibly think of out of mushrooms. My thanksgiving turkey! The oven decided to stop working on Thanksgiving, half an hour into my turkey cooking. The bottom refused to heat up at all. I spent the next four hours with the top of the oven at 500 degrees, and I rotated my turkey by hand until it was done. Somehow, it still came out deliciously. That was a real nightmare!