My sons and I had a once-in-a-lifetime 6 day Tuscan road trip. I could go on and on about it, but I already have here and here and piled photos here. We drove from Florence to Volterra, took a ferry to Elba Island, hopped back to the coast and visited some of the most beautiful [...]

Christmas in Italy is generally celebrated from December 24 until January 6. So there is still ample time for Italian Christmas cookies! Since I am in Florence for a year, there is no better time or place to uncover the requisite list of Italy’s Christmas cookie (and cake) traditions. This is a quick list, but [...]

If I am a collector of anything, if I search high and low, near and far to find something worthy of safe keeping… it would have to be recipes. So when I ran across a post by Chez Pim, I skimmed her blog and hit a few links an a hunt for a prized ‘best [...]

Today is a good day to be my family: my homework for class is to make creme brulee. It is on our final practical exam and I want to make it at home a few times, to get out the kinks. In fact, I have made creme brulee quite a few times, based on a [...]

The truth is, you shouldn’t make these.
They aren’t good for you. In fact, not only are they not good for you, they are bad for you.
But if you are at a coffee shop and order the cherry studded scone or the nanaimo bar or that big slice of white chocolate and strawberry cream cake—then you [...]

I am trying to remember the first time I tried a Nanaimo Bar… And I think I was in high school, working at a restaurant called Dutch Mothers. I could hardly resist consuming one of these each time I worked a shift.
This isn’t their exact recipe, but it is appropriately out of a collection of [...]