Hello, world.

This feels like a early 2000's blog.

Writing this brings me back to my WordPress blogging days. Simpler times when all I had to do was write - no Instagram, no fancy videos, just words. What a joy.

I’m guessing you’re here to learn more about what I’m going to be writing about. Let’s dive in, shall we?

This year is the year I hope to write my first cookbook – a feat I’ve wanted to take on for the past decade or so.

You know that bucket list item you’ve been wanting to do forever but keep putting off? The kind of thing that you keep telling yourself “I’m not ready to do that yet” or “I don’t have the skills for that yet” – that’s what writing a cookbook has been for me.

This past December, something clicked inside of me. “I am ready. I can do this. I have all the skills.”

And so here I am. One month into recipe testing and playing around with cookbook angles.

I am starting this newsletter as a way to share that process with you, to test out my recipe ideas, and gain valuable feedback. And most importantly, to get reps at writing.

I firmly believe that you should never create in a vacuum. Even Chris Rock tests out his jokes in small comedy venues first. He’ll test out his jokes and use that feedback to inform what he includes in his big shows.

This newsletter will be my test lab. Welcome to the madness.

So what kind of recipes will I be sharing?

If you know me then you already know that the backdrop for my recipes will be Italian food. Italy is the whole reason why I fell in love with food in the first place. At some point, I’ll share more about that story. But for now, I’ll say this: I want to take Italian recipes and flip them on their head, creating something entirely new. This won’t be a place for tradition, necessarily. But I will certainly be using tradition to inform the path I forge.

Finally, I’ll leave you a quote I recently heard that struck a chord in me – a reminder that writing about food is valuable, perhaps more valuable than we think:

“The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star." - Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin