chi 'e uso alla zappa non piglia la lancia

Don't be fooled, I do not in fact speak Italian fluently, but I am obsessed with Italy (and France for that matter) and this is one of my favorite Italian proverbs. It's loosely translates as "everyone must know their place" and for me, that is in the kitchen or somewhere else close to it, eating.
In this blog, my dear friend Tracy and I plan to cook through some of our favorite cookbooks (see below) aiming to cook with fresh, local, inexpensive and organic ingredients with a few of our personal recipes mixed in.

A few things about us:
-We are both on a budget so cooking in season is a priority and shopping through local farmers markets are a must.
-We are visual learners and will be documenting our journey with a variety of snapshots capturing how-to's (& how-not-to's)
-Tracy is a fabulous winemaker and will also be exploring food and wine pairing.
-We are not experienced chefs or have gone to cooking school, except for a few classes here and there over the years (See future blog title: How to ruin a kale frittata, Step 1: Don't use kale)
-We are however passionate about being better cooks and learning to cook with new ingredients, tools and methods.
-Some of our friends, boyfriends, parents etc. make some pretty unreal food, we hope to share those here as well.
-We love to laugh so if you can not find humor in the day-to-day, perhaps this blog is not for you.

Favorite Cookbooks:
The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (often referred to as the bible)
Pure Flavor by Kurt Beecher Dammeier
The Herbal Kitchen by Jerry Traunfeld

There is no end-date-challenge to finish cooking through all of these books a la Julie & Julia, but we hope to continue this for as long as it is fun, aiming to inspire eachother, learn more about fresh food, be better chefs and add humor along the way...