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Fave dei morti + Tasting Rome Giveaway

Julia Child once said: “People who love to eat are always the best people.” I’d like to add to that that they also make the best food writers.

I know very few people who loves to eat more than my dear friend Katie Parla, whose latest book, Tasting Rome, hit the shelves last week.

Today, I’m giving away one copy of Tasting Rome and three exclusive gifts to a lucky winner: nine 8″ x 10″ photo prints by the talented co-author and photographer of the book, Kristina Gill (whom we all know from her In the Kitchen With column at Design*Sponge), an 18″ x 24″ illustrated map by artist Lena Corwin, and a recipe booklet with 6 brand-new recipes.

According to my mom, I’ve been to Rome twice, the first time when I was three and the second time when I was six. I don’t remember a thing, but she has photos to prove it. I’ve been longing for a visit that I’d be able to remember in the future, but I’ve been living between deadlines for the longest time. Right now, the best I can do is read about what Rome has to offer and cook from Katie’s book.

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San Francisco Travel Notes – Japantown, Pacific Heights and Marina

The moment I arrive at my hotel in San Francisco, I throw my suitcases into the room, wash my face and I’m out the door. I don’t care how tired and swollen I get after a 14-hour flight. There is no time to waste.

Out of the hotel, I take a right. Twenty steps later, I’m standing in front of the coziest and best manicured public park my eyes have ever seen. I gaze at the empty bench and start dreaming of the afternoons I’ll spend there, reading a book while Linda, my Airedale Terrier, sits quietly by my side.

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Dandelion Chocolate + Great News!

The plans I had for my San Francisco trip… I was hoping to have breakfast at Tartine, lunch at Pizzeria Delfina, dinner at Zuni, ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery & Humphry Slocombe and several coffees throughout the day at Blue Bottle EVERY SINGLE DAY. Then, I was going to visit every vintage store and photograph every mural in town, beg the lady at Cookin! for discounts, take photos of every corner of my old neighborhood to create a humongous panoramic photo for one of the walls at home, buy a luggage-full of vintage cookbooks at Omnivore, eat at In-N-Out Burger on my way to and back from Carmel and arrange a private showing to see my dream future home in Big Sur (if my cookbook sells two million more copies, I’ll be able to afford it!). Oh, and beg, cry and sleep at Nepenthe‘s doorstep to convince them to adopt me – just in case my cookbook doesn’t sell millions of copies. All these in two weeks.

I never even entered Tartine, had pizza at Delfina and lunch at Zuni only once, inhaled many (but never enough) scoops of salted caramel ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery and managed to cross off about 1% of the murals. And not just because there wasn’t enough time or that I was the designated tour guide of a very ambitious party of four, but also because the city is full of new places to explore. It’s been almost five years since my last visit. The list of my new favorites is so long, it’s impossible to put all of them into a single post. I wanted to start off with my most favorite place: Dandelion Chocolate.

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