What is becoming embarassing to admit, I have never been to the alps. I have wanted to go for as long as I can remember. It has become the kind of wanting that shapes what I paint and what I read and, it turns out, what I cook. I have not yet stood in a high valley or sat down in a chalet at the end of a long day on a trail. So for now I do the next best thing, which is to make the food from the place I'm still longing for. Kaiserschmarrn has become a weekend routine for my

I have always loved to cook, but the skills and the honing of the craft to feel comfortable in what you're serving takes a lot of time. My minestrone recipe was the first time I felt like I had achieved the level of confidence in my cooking ability to allow myself to be given the label of a "good cook." Being a cook for me is not the primary label I identify with, creatively I'm an artist and a writer. But the throughline, and where my passions come together is in the way f