Alma

This past spring I was getting antsy. My job wasn't making me feel inspired, and i wanted to try something new. I played around with the idea of making fresh cheese, and contacted local goat farmers. One woman returned my call and said "where will you stay when you intern here?"

I said, "In portland, I am not going to move! "
she replied: "I wake up before the sun to milk these goats, are you going to drive 2 hours every morning?"
Oh. right. this is not the thing for me right now.

Then into my inbox comes a bit of press about a local chocolatier. Immediately I knew what I wanted to do.
I contacted Sarah Hart at Alma Chocolates about interning with her.

Sarah is a wonderful woman who agreed to meet me for coffee to talk about my intentions:

Am I planning on learning her secrets and then opening my own shop down the street from her?

No.

I felt an immediate connection and I couldn't wait for my first day.

Nourishing Traditions

I don't remember cooking as a child, but while sifting through old tins of photos, I have come across many of me in the kitchen.
In them, my mother wears a calico apron, and instructs me on proper mixing of cookie dough. I stand on a chair, my smile as wide as a dinner plate.

Unlike many lovers of food that I know, I do not have a flour covered cookbook from my mother, or notecards written prudently in a flowing cursive from a distant and long gone, but well remembered relative. But I do have memories of special birthday meals of spanikopita, cakes in the shape of rainbows and unicorns, and those photos of my mother and I.
And though these moments remain stirred into my memories, I felt an inner nostagia for a true gastronomic history. For new reasons for celebration. New traditions.

So in the last two years I decided to start from scratch.

This blog is about my love of food, friendship, and joie de vivre.