The Brooklyn Suppers is here!

Can you believe its been 13 years since Haute n the Kitchen was published?!

Wow it seems like only yesterday I was at my first book launch and signing at BookPeople Bookstore in Austin TX; which is where I wrote the cookbook. The event was magical and I had to pinch myself often that I had really written and published a cookbook. A cookbook that represented what home cooking should be and how home cooked food is the bond we make with family and friends.

I left Texas in July of that year and moved to Brooklyn NY. It was a life changer for sure. There I was all alone in an empty brownstone apartment waiting for a truck to arrive with my few belongings. While waiting I explored my new neighborhood, Cobble Hill, with my trusty Weimaraner, Sula Green.

Once settled in after a few months of unpacking, decorating, painting and creating my new home I was ready to make friends. Sounded easy, but I would stroll the streets of my neighborhood finding myself too shy to enter a bar. There certainly were not any shortage of bars to enter but I felt odd as a single female to go inside. There’s my Southern heritage spilling out and hearing my Grandmothers and Mother that a lady does not go into bars alone. HA!

Well I finally took that step across the threshhold into a french bistro that had live music. Bar Tabac in Cobble Hill Brooklyn. I made a few friends and was feeling confident. I started to launch out even further and began attending Supper Clubs across Brooklyn. Here strangers gathered over long tables enjoying homemade food and creating real moments of authenticity. I was hooked. I attended more and made more friends. One night sitting at home with Sula looking around my living roon and thinking hmmmm… I could host a Supper Club here. Why not? How hard could it be to get a bunch of tables and chairs up the 3 story walkup brownstone?

Long story short and the reason you are reading this is that I did launch a Supper Club in my 3 story walkup. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Most definitely. These suppers were documented on my blog. They were photographed. I saved all the recipes.

Soon word of mouth got around and I had to limit seats per Supper Club. As a designer and hostess I created a theme around each Supper, influenced from my global travels. Inspired by the foods I tasted around the world. I was travelling quite extensively overseas during the Supper Club years. I shopped all the markets I could searching for culinary objects, buying spices, tasting everything and creating the Suppers in my journal. I would come back to Brooklyn and create and host the Suppers.

It became hard to travel so much to Asia and return to busy Brooklyn. I decided to relocate to Southern California where coming home was a sigh of relief. I had the beach at my front door. It was calming. Peaceful. I kept travelling but coming home was better without noisy streets, honking horns, trash trucks at 5am and I couldn’t find peace any longer. I missed the Suppers but didn’t think it would be as succesful in SoCal. So I hung up my hat. Then someone asked my why I didn’t document them. Good question. So I did.

They are all there in the new book, The Brooklyn Suppers.

Books should be arriving to my publisher in the next few weeks. The book was ready in the Spring of 2021. You guessed it, the world came to a hault and so did the boat carrying my books. They are on the water now and should be in port in the next few weeks. Good things come to those who wait right?

Once the books are on the shelves I will let you know! If you have a great local bookstore please let me know so we can reach out to them for inventory of the book. I really want to reach out to small independent book stores as well as Barnes & Noble and other larger chain book stores.

Book Release Party

Hi. Welcome to Haute n the Kitchen!

I started this blog as a way to bring my first book off the pages and to give “voice” to my passion for all things on food, entertaining, travel and great design.

“Haute n the Kitchen” was published in March 2009! Yah!  The book is about entertaining which I have done ALOT of over the years and hope to do until these hands can chop & stir no more! The book is designed into 18 menus most starting out with a fun cocktail (aren’t they all?), a starter and usually 2-3 courses ending either in something sweet, something cheesy or something liquid 🙂 The book goes on to give a full preparation game plan for the menu (for those of us who need a “to do” list), a design theme covering everything from linens and flowers to place cards and take aways. Each menu also has a downloadable itunes playlist to coordinate with the menu & theme. So, yeah its a ready-to-go party! Just add friends and family!

I travel the globe quite frequently so, when I am home, my favorite thing to do is have a bunch of friends over, cook up a storm, open some great wines and enjoy all of the above! I am Italian American which really just means noone passes through my kitchen without getting fed. But that is really just the beginning of the story.

As a home furnishings & textile designer, I find myself on alot of planes going to strange cities in foreign countries and spending way too many hours in factories breathing in paint, wood dust and god knows what else. Not exactly aromas to peak ones appetite per se. However one of my favorite things to do, when the factory doors close, is to get out and experience the local scene both from a culinary and design perspective.

Inspiration is everywhere! Street stalls with tasty nibbles, spice markets that provide a peep hole into what lies beneath the local cuisine, the colors on the buildings, the local attire, the floral & fauna of a place, the texture of a place – how it feels to walk its streets, hear its sounds, smell its aromas (not always a winner here) and taste taste taste – all INSPIRATION for my next dinner party!

I write about it all. I make a poor attempt to photograph it all. Then I share it.

My blog will hopefully take you along with me on some of my adventures around the world. We will eat, drink, sit on planes for 17 hours, ride rickshaws, dodge cows, design fabrics, eat again, drink more, haggle pricing, discuss various wood types for furniture making, meet interesting characters, explore night markets, visit festivals, drink chai, drink chai, drink chai!

Pushkar India

                         …and sooner or later…sleep. Pack Light. Carry-on Only. Bring your appetite, for everything!