The Beginning

I grew up in a suburb outside of Philadelphia. I have a large extended Philadelphia “Italianish” family. My Great-Grandmother and Great-Grandfather were both children of Italian immigrants and they lived in Philadelphia their whole life. My Great-Grandmother, Jenny, taught our family about food, parties, and showing your love through food. My dad fondly tells us stories about the five-course Sunday meals that she would prepare in her two-kitchen row-home for her five grandchildren. These courses were as follows,

1st Course-Antipasto

2nd Course-Pasta In Gravy With Meatballs and Sausage

3rd Course-Roast Chicken

4th Course-Salad

5th Course-Dessert

Because of Jenny, my family had a love of food and sharing food that has now been passed down for generations. My family would gather for all birthdays and holidays, packing all 20 cousins, 10 aunts and uncles, and sometimes friends and in-laws into my grandparents’ small home in Glenside. As we got older my parents started hosting family gatherings at our house and more recently my aunt took over. I loved these parties. I loved the time we shared together. It always felt special- even when we saw each other almost every month. At my grandparents’ house, we always had the same antipasto spread, Philly tomato pie, and a roast of some sort. I miss these parties. As my cousins got older and families grew, we gathered less and less for birthday celebrations and holidays. I moved out to Portland after graduating from Temple University and so I miss even more of these parties.

I now try to bring this kind of love and celebration to my life in Portland. Welcoming friends over for dinner parties, hosting book clubs, and any celebration I can get my host hands on. I am always inviting friends and family to make the trek out to Portland in hopes of sharing my home and the beauty of Oregon with them.

This business derives from this need to show love through food. I strongly believe that some of the best gifts are things that are shared, delicious meals paired with drinks and full belly laughs, cookies for the holidays, and understated moments in our lives that fully encompass love. This is a space for me to share some of my favorite things with the world.

My husband and I are excited to offer special gifts that you can share with your loved ones this holiday season, biscotti gift boxes. These boxes are a take on the traditional Christmas tins that are gifted by friends and family who spend hours baking Christmas cookies and biscotti for their friends, family, and co-workers. These tins were coveted in my household. We would have to pace ourselves throughout December, saving enough biscotti to adorn a cookie tray for Christmas morning. Over this past year, I have been playing around with biscotti recipes. During my research and testing, I realized that biscotti recipes vary quite a bit. Upon further testing, I learned that there are hundreds of variations claiming to be biscotti, these recipes differed in every possible way from the amounts of baking soda, flour, sugar, and types of fat. Of course, each variation resulted in a somewhat different bake, crunch, and crumble, but ultimately, it still resembled something that in many parts of the world, would be referred to as biscotti. With all this recipe experimentation, I was able to create a recipe that gave me the result I was looking for, a cookie with substance, a bit of crunch, just the right amount of crumble, and a lot of flavor.

All this to say, this is just the beginning. I hope to share more stories with you but for now, I want to thank you for reading this tangent. Have a fantastic week and stay tuned for biscotti updates.