All my passions - baking, cooking, Italy, France and writing - collide here. Here I share tasty tales, recipes, and travel tips to help you "eat your way" through Italy and France. Through the food of a place, we learn about the people, their traditions, how they live(d), and the land itself. By sharing a meal with someone, especially one that is cooked together, a part of each person goes into that meal and they are forever bound to one another, even if only in the memory of the dish. For me the food of a place, its history, food traditions, preparing a meal and breaking bread together with those you meet along the way is the most important part of travel and getting to know the place you visit.
Bio:
I've been cooking since before I was 8 years old. It started in my mom's Italian-American kitchen. The first food memories I have are of making chocolate chip cookies, watching my grandmother roll pasta dough out the length of a table, and gazing from a kitchen stool as my mom worked magic with flour, sugar, eggs and butter. Even back then, I would constantly change recipes until I got them to taste exactly how I wanted. At that time, this meant adding my favorite food, chocolate, to everything and taking out walnuts. My mom indulged me except when I wanted to add chocolate to the ravioli and take the walnuts out of rocky road.
Cooking, and especially baking, have always been my passions. I would gawk at pastry shop windows like most other girls do at Tiffany's window. I was dazed and amazed at those edible jewels in the window, and always wanted to be the one to create them.
After a few years as an English teacher, and some say during a quarter-life crisis, I decided to make my passion my profession. I went to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and received a "Grande Diplome" in both savory cooking and pastry arts. I chose Le Cordon Bleu Paris because I was head over heels in love with the city and its patisseries. I interned at a patisserie in Paris (yelled at daily in French by my chef). After Paris, I returned to California and worked in the pastry department at Julia's Kitchen in Napa and as a culinary instructor for COPIA. Currently I work mainly as a personal chef and culinary instructor.
I love Italy and France. You could say, I grew up in an Italian kitchen but trained in a French one. Both countries and cuisines have a lot of similarities (neither will admit to it), but also a lot of differences.
I still have family in Italy, and have traveled extensively throughout the "boot" and Sicily over the last 15 years. I lived in Paris for almost 2 years while attending Cordon Bleu and while completing my internship. I continue to travel to both countries every year.
Getting Around -
On this site, I've created a Recipe Archive, where you can find all the recipes I've posted here. There's also a Food & Travel Posts Archive where you'll find a list of all other posts, except for the Italy on a Plate series (which has it's own page). I've compiled a list of Most Popular & My Favorite Posts, too. There is an RSS Feed or you can subscrive via email notifications to be notified whenever I post something new.
If any of my culinary or general travel tips have been helpful, if you've used and enjoyed recipes on this site, or if you just want to help support Food Lover's Odyssey, donations via Pay Pal are much appreciated.
Social networking is a huge part of both blogging and meeting (albeit virtually) great and knowledgeable people in France & Italy. You can find me on almost every social networking site. On the Food Lover's Odyssey FACEBOOK page, I share all stuff I like (not only food-related) about Italy and France. There, I also post daily photos from my Italy & France photo collection of 15,000 photo. On TWITTER, I chat food & travel with my tweeps, share new blog post notificiations, and add a few snippets from my daily life. I've joined the PINTEREST craze pinning photos of all things I like to look at. On STUMBLEUPON I bookmark a lot of food & travel favorites from all around the world. I'm still figuring out how to use GOOGLE+. And if you'd like to sift through my unorganized FLICKR sets (I'm working on making them more gawker friendly), you're welcome to visit me there, too.
My Writing Elsewhere, Kudos and Acknowledgements:
I'm a contributing writer for the following online sites and publications:
Places Food Lover's Odyssey has been honored, featured, or mentioned:
Mignon Potenza - 5 Best Italy-Based Food and Wine Blogs
Condé Naste Traveler on Concierge.com - The Perrin Post
Holiday Rental UK - Grantourismo September Competition Winning Entries
Grantourismo Blog - Travel Blogging Competition September Winners
She Who Blogs - Winner of Three Signs O' Fall Photo Contest
Food News Journal - Best of the Blogs
Why Go Italy - Italy Travel News
NileGuide Rome - Rome Local Flavor - Roman Gelaterie
Le Petit France Blog - Seventeen Ideas for an Afternoon in Paris
The Kitchn - Delicious Links
The Circumference: Inspired Travel - Learn the Art of French Cuisine in Paris France
Open Table Blog - Top Chef Just Desserts Episode 7: War of the Roses Leads to Demise of Team Diva
Veneto Views (From the American Embassy in Rome)
Wandering Italy Blog - Rome in Black and White with Anthony Bourdain
Sew, Mama, Sew! - Christmas Gift Ideas for the Outdoor Adventurers
Find my food photos on these sites:
Tastespotting - Gallery of Food Lover's Odyssey's photos featured on TasteSpotting
Foodgawker - Gallery of Food Lover's Odyssey's photos featured on Foodgawker
DessertStalking - Gallery of Food Lover's Odyssey's photos featured on DessertStalking
Photograzing - Gallery of Food Lover's Odyssey's photos featured on Photograzing
Personal Chef and Culinary Instruction:
Traveling in the San Francisco or Napa/Sonoma Valley area? I offer personal chef services, lunches, dinners, or picnics for parties from one to twenty.
I also conduct in-home cooking classes for adults and children in the San Francisco/Northern California area.
If you're interested in personal chef services and/or cooking classes, please contact me at chefkathyayer [at] yahoo.com
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