Kathy Ayer

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 show my mom how to 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. Back then 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 espeically baking, have always been my passions. I would gawk at pastry shop windows like most other girls do at a Tiffany's window. I was dazed and amazed at those jewels in the window, and always wanted to be the one to create them.

After a few years as an English teacher, 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 because I was completely in love with the city and its patisseries) I interned at a patisserie in Paris (yelled at DAILY by my chef but learned so much it made up for my broken eardrums), then returned to California. I worked in the pastry department at Julia's Kitchen in Napa and as a culinary instructor for COPIA.

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 love both!

I've just spent many months traveling throughout Italy, searching out the regional cuisine, with stops in Paris and other European cities. Here I'll share my food finds and a few other tasty tales. Who knows, you might even see a recipe for chocolate ravioli one day.