I thought I wanted to be a film maker until I got my first cooking job at the Olema Inn right out of college. Since 2004 I have weaved my way in and out of restaurants throughout the Bay Area, stopping to focus in on cheese for a few years. After some time at The Cheese School of San Francisco l found Tomales Bay Foods/Cowgirl Creamery, where I passed my days in the warehouse talking to chefs about cheese. One of those chefs, David Wilcox, then at Gjelina in Venice, talked me out of my comfortable roost in the cheese world and back into the kitchen.
I spent the next six years opening two new kitchens - first at Mill Valley Beerworks with David, and then at M.H. Bread & Butter in San Anselmo with the Yankos. Both allowed me to focus in on my personal cooking style and ingredient sourcing. I transitioned into running the Artisan Baking Center in Petaluma, CA, related to my husband’s milling and baking business Central Milling.
After our son was born in 2020 I have been home pursuing my other passion - writing. While I find that most inspiration comes from my family or my life in the food world, I have enjoyed using this space to explore other topics as well - my growing pains as a gardener, 4x4 camping, and an epic remodel of our new home - all with my bread baker husband Nicky Giusto in the near countryside of West Marin...
“To invite people to dine with us is to make ourselves responsible for their well-being for as long as they are under our roofs.”
- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste