I would like to start with a little background story of who I am and where I come from. I have a passion for good home cooking, especially when I can cook with locally sourced ingredients. I was born and raised in Italy, where my mom, Bruna, taught me her culinary secrets. To this day, she still guides me and inspires me, even if we live so far away from each other.
My parents were born in Vicenza, Italy and they lived most of their young lives there. They were married in 1970 and went to Rome for their honeymoon. They moved and eventually established in the small town at the base of the Prealps called Thiene.
My parents were always very eager to show my brother and me the best of Italy, and we traveled a lot together during those times. Going camping as a family was one of my favorite ways to spend time together. We visited the Po area, as well as Abbruzzo and Calabria. We also traveled outside of the country, and my father would, over time, travel to many destinations around the world.
Growing up, I remember sitting at the kitchen table, doing my homework, and watching my mom make food. We would talk about my favorite subject in school, Philosophy, and meanwhile, she would be rolling some pasta dough for fried calzoni or chop some vegetables for soffritto. My mom cooked daily for our family, and she inspired me because she would always try to make good food even when ingredients were scarce. She would reinvent some recipes and thus show me how you can be creative in the kitchen and not let anything go to waste.
I graduated with a masters in philosophy before making the decision to move to the US. I have been in the US for over 20 years, and I live in the Pacific Northwest along with my husband and son. Throughout my years in the States, I enlisted in the Army as a firm believer that serving and giving is a way to connect with others and to learn skills that would be useful to help. That’s why I turned my learnings from the military experience into a career. Today I work as a radiologic technologist in a local trauma center. However, cooking has always been my staple, my connection to the place I still think of as home; although it hasn’t been so for a long time, I established roots here, in the Pacific Northwest.
I enjoy cooking for my family, and I’m proud to be able to surprise them with a variety of home cooked meals. The three of us enjoy a simple life on our farm and share our lives with two dogs and three cows. With that in mind, I want to tell you why my husband and I created this website. When we started it, we had three basic ideas in mind on what we would like to achieve:
- To provide a collection of regional Italian recipes and also unique recipes that blend well with any lifestyle or style of cooking. We try to use ingredients that are fresh and easy to find.
- To inspire you with using produce that can be homegrown and produce that you source locally from farmers and by helping you paying close attention to labels when you shop at grocery stores.
- To encourage you to reach out to local farmers, who can offer a variety of ingredients that don’t travel thousands of miles to get to our tables. In this sense, we feel that we can all contribute to our hard working community, and in exchange, we eat fresh and seasonal food.
Welcome to Bruna’s table. Buon appetito!
Thank you for reading!