Caciocavallo - Rekindling The Romance

One of the first cheeses I enjoyed while I was living in Italy was caciocavallo. I'd never seen the gourd shaped cheese before, and the shape and its ubiquity drew me to try it. It has a milky yet mildly piquant flavor, almost what you would imagine mozzarella would taste like if it were a hard cheese and aged. It's approachable as well as delicious and unique.

I moved to Milan when I was 19 to study design. Before then, although the cheese I had been exposed to was very good (you can't beat VT cheddar) it was pretty limited. Brie seemed pretentious and as a teen I had no reason or occasion to ever buy or eat real cheese other than cheddar. A whole new world opened up to me in the streets and shops of Italy

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The Wedding Present/Future


My wedding present from Scrapple - a farm board for our future home! He worked with a great artist on Etsy to make a custom farm "skyline" cutout black board for me. For now I can dream up our future farm in chalk and someday we'll use it to leave notes for eachother and welcome guests. For now, it's hanging right over our dresser. It's the first thing we see when we wake up in the morning and a welcome first thought to the start of another day in the city, a cheerful reminder that we are on our way to a future of our own design. I love it! 

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Homemade Toothpaste


Our Sweet Birch Homemade ToothpasteI may have crossed the line this time. We were in the drugstore and remembered we were almost out of toothpaste. I bent down to grab some AIM (cheap and effective) when something clicked and I decided to take a look at the ingredients. When I stood back up, empty handed, Scrapple gave me his best “what is it crazy lady” look. Then I checked out the Toms of Maine tube...They both had some of the “moderate hazard” ingredients from the The Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Database and I still had the bitter taste in my mouth from my last creepy cosmetics experience. I turned back to Scrapple, “I’ll just make some.” Scrapple’s look intensified, “Ooooooh kay?”.
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