When you’re the type of person who makes spreadsheets of favorite chocolates, coffees, cocktails or food/drink highlights in every neighborhood of your city, some might call it obsession. When you can look through Zagat, or any other food guide or list, and find barely a dozen places left you haven’t been to, you’ve got an addiction. When you add all that with passion for writing, eating and exploring the world, you have to share it, and that is what I do.

I work part time at and am Food/Drink Writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian (one of the nation’s oldest – and one of the few independent – alternative weekly newspapers), where I have my own twice weekly online column, Appetite. I also write print articles in issues like Best of the Bay, Scene (drink) and Feast: food and drink.

My Perfect Spot newsletter is an even more detailed account of what I’m eating, drinking and discovering every two weeks, distilling highlights (or sometimes low points) for you. When I travel, I do the same. I have an insatiable hunger to dig deep and go broad, finding something special in every neighborhood and category I have time to get to. I thrive on colorful people, music, settings and cultures… when these fuse together, it’s magic.

WHERE I COME FROM

I’ve been a San Francisco resident for a decade, living in the New York City and Los Angeles metropolitan areas previously (born in Oklahoma City, then living in Missouri from ages 1-6).  I write five times weekly for Go2 Media, have written for Wine Consumer, worked at the California Culinary Academy with emerging chefs and hospitality managers, I occasionally judge cocktail or food competitions, and have been the food critic  on a Bay Area live radio show.

For years, I’ve written reviews, provided personalized itineraries, even tours – a “where to go and what to do” – for friends and their friends. In San Fran alone, I’ve frequented hundreds upon hundreds of restaurants, cafes, bars and cultural sites (comparison and finding the best has long been an obsession). I can’t help but share my passion for beauty, the arts, taste, adventure.

THE CONVERGING OF LOVES

Though music is one of my life’s greatest loves, and you will likewise find me able to talk film, theater, culture, history and travel for hours an end, two great loves came together in what I am doing with The Perfect Spot, my Guardian Appetite column and my writing/eating pursuits:

Writing -I’ve been writing since I was girl, illustrating and writing my own books, reading day and night (I still read constantly), assembling my own collection of poetry, taking writing classes, being part of writing groups in Berkeley.

Food – Being part Sicilian, part German, with a little English and Swedish thrown in, I’ve naturally grown up with an appetite. My Sicilian Mama daily made me and my three siblings home-cooked meals. Moving to New Jersey, just outside NYC, at age 14 from Southern California (after being in Kansas City and Oklahoma until age 6), I grew up in many parts of the country with varying foods and cultures, usually the first in our family (besides my Dad) to go back for seconds. New York City awakened my love for cities and the world during those high school years… I came alive whenever I was in the city.

My love for food evolved to the next level when I first traveled overseas. In my early 20’s I spent three months in Vietnam and Thailand working in orphanages and slums, which changed my life. Shortly thereafter, I traveled around Europe (and Morocco) by myself for three months. When I returned back to Southern California after a full year away, I would never eat (or live) the same way again. Hunting for authenticity, for “the real”, so avoiding chain restaurants like the plague (not an easy feat in Orange County!)

Moving to San Francisco soon thereafter, where I’d previously lived for three months, accelerated my love for food, infusing every day with endless discoveries in this truly unique city I adore. Returning to my beloved Italy three times now, including a month for my honeymoon, is where I see fully realized the lifestyle possible when things like long meals, wine, music, art, beauty, family and friendship are integral to the community at large.

I travel with as acute a hunger as I live my day-to-day life (check out the Wandering Traveler section of my newsletter). I’ve…

- eaten my way through mountain towns  and dined on impeccable lake fish and cheeses in Switzerland
- went on a two week BBQ road trip through the South, ingesting all the various sauces and styles of ‘que
- took my love for classic cocktails to the next level in New Orleans where master bartenders like Chris McMillian changed the way I drink
- chowed down in pho bars and on bahn mi all over Vietnam
- ate feasts with my hands in Morocco
– pushed my spice/heat tolerance to regions beyond in Thailand
- ate the lushest fruits off the coast of Venezuela
- explored numerous wine towns of Tuscany and Tyrolian food on the Italian/Austrian border
- become a coffee snob and gelato-obsessed in Italy

… and the list goes on and on. Besides the Bay Area, NY and LA areas are a huge part of me as I’ve spent a great part of my life and childhood in both (with close friends and family still there). I’m so connected to New Orleans – the music, spirit, people and food – I can’t believe I’ve never lived there. England and Italy are my roots and where my soul longs to return. Never do I feel quite as at home with a people as I do in Asia.

You’ll hear me mention The Renaissance Man in my newsletter… he’s my husband and best friend, whom I’ve known for nearly 15 years, married to for seven. He’s truly a renaissance man who’s a theater acting major, musician (plays three instruments), writer, photographer and makes much of his own clothing. He shares my passion for travel, food, drink and peoples of the world, so together we’re an inseparable team. He taught me how take photos (I do all my own now), he created this website, and is the perfect partner in tasting and exploring.

Yes, I cook and love to experiment with cocktails at home, often entertaining with classic or creative cocktails and spirits’ tasting for my friends. My husband is better at cooking technique than I (I’m still somewhat sloppy at chopping), but I love digging for recipes, shopping for ingredients and we both enjoy cooking together.

HOW
Writing pays so little it’s tragic…  my main income comes in being a manager part time at the Guardian. As a self-sustaining culinary imbiber and critic, I’m paid minimally for my freelance articles and columns, but buy most of my meals/drinks, spending a small fortune exploring multiple places a week.

The longer I do this, the more I’m in the mix with industry events, dinners and restaurant/bar pre-openings as press, but never to write favorable reviews. I’m fiercely devoted to honesty in my assessments, though I tend to not write about a place if it thoroughly disappointed me – there are too many great places to focus energy on. If I’m doing a full review of a place, I might have one media dinner there, but will go on my own a couple other times to round out my assessment. Often in Top Tastes, I’m sharing favorite, stand-out dishes so I may have tried those only once.

I appreciate invitations to attend events or meals as it helps when spending a big part of my income on researching food, giving me the ability to try more, rather than less, thus increasing my knowledge of and ability to recommend. But I will always return to places I like on my own dime and state if dish recommends I’m making were from a pre-opening event.