About

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."

--Harriet Van Horn

There's a grainy photo somewhere from the 80's, with me standing next to my dad, helping him make pasta. I was five at the time, and he came to my kindergarten class to do a cooking demonstration since he was a professional chef. I remember looking up at him as he checked the handmade pasta to see if it was done, and feeling so proud that my dad--my dad!--could cook like that.

With a father as a chef, my brothers and I grew up with delicious, complex, international foods, all prepared as good or better than we could find in a restaurant. My friends had homemade pizzas and fresh, creamy eclairs on my tenth birthday and they're just as likely to get an unforgettable feast if they stop by the house now. My family and I often stay up until the early hours of the morning talking about recipes, poring over cookbooks, and eating Dad's latest experiments. Sometimes he'll leave messages on my voice mail with a list of ingredients about a new recipe he tried the night before. I'll play them several times; partly for the recipe, partly because I like hearing him so happy, and partly because it's music to my ears.

In June 2010, I moved to Monza, Italy (about twenty minutes from Milan), to live with my wonderful partner, Guido. I wanted to write a blog to connect to my family, share my adventures in Italy and write what I'm passionate about. In a nutshell, my passions are writing, cooking and food, creating a healthier planet, experiencing other cultures, traveling, storytelling...and connecting to the people I love. Since Italy is far from California--my home and where my family live--I'm hoping I can connect to them and to other readers through this cooking and food blog, and by doing so, support the Slow Food movement here in Italy, which emphasizes activism through what you eat. Now that's my kind of cause.

I bought two cookbooks full of Italian recipes that I'll be trying out in this blog. The first cookbook is called La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy, by the Italian Academy of Cuisine. I bought this for my brothers and dad too, so we could cook the same recipes and compare notes. The other one I'll use a lot is The Gluten-Free Italian Cookbook, by Mary Capone. For the most part, I try to eat a mostly organic, mostly gluten-free/wheat-free life, (which is hard sometimes in Italy) so my recipes will reflect those preferences. I also--for the most part--stay away from red meat, though the word on street is that I occasionally indulge in undeniably divine mouthfuls of prosciutto crudo...but that's just a rumor.

Finally, a word about the blog title. When I first came to Italy to visit my boyfriend in 2009, we sat down one night and he made me a bowl of pesto pasta. I  was stunned by how ridiculously pleasurable the experience was, and I ended the meal gasping, stretched out on the table, unable to communicate. "That was orgasmic," was all I could manage to say.

And that's when I realized that the combination of a few things occurring in a kitchen--good ingredients, joyful preparation, and a passion for food--have created some of the most pleasurable experiences in my life.

And thus, a blog was born.

Me and Dad--the original inspiration--many years ago.

My email address is jenniedurant@gmail.com if you'd like to contact me.  You can also see my personal website www.jenniedurant.com.