About

Let’s just say that I need to release my creativity and love of all things kitchen.  So it seems only fitting that I would start a blog of my favorite room in the house, La Cucina, (the kitchen).  I’m first generation American and grew up with my immigrant Italian mother and grandmothers, yes who both lived with us, cooking in the kitchen.  I guess my mother’s love of cooking was obvious, although I didn’t realize it until she passed, but she converted the second level of our home, which was the laundry room and closet into a huge kitchen, in the 70’s.  I grew up in a house that had two kitchens!  But one kitchen had a washing machine in it! LOL, but nonetheless, it was huge!  We also had an enormous kitchen table, (my mother’s version of an island) where many fabulous delicacies were born.  I grew up coming home from Catholic school to a home filled with aromas and fresh pasta.  Yes, you read that correctly.  My mother and both grandmothers made everything from scratch, just like the old country.  I cooking in the upstairs kitchen and the other two in the downstairs, oh no wonder my father was so jolly.  I mean isn’t it the way to a man’s heart?  Food?.  He was eager to oblige them when they asked how does that taste?  Oh and he joined in as well.  I remember him helping with the pasta machine, holding the pasta as it came out or turning the crank just enough for that perfect size.  I never knew my love of the kitchen was so much a part of me until many events happened in my life.  I tell you later, but I read somewhere there was a survey asking “What is a smell that reminds you of home?” My immediate response-“Olive oil and Garlic!”-to be continued….Mangia Bella.