About

Hi, I'm Michele.

I live in Central California with my husband and our many pets. We currently have cats, birds and a rabbit, though we would welcome a rescued dog if one ended up in our laps. All of our animals are rescues, and are either older, or have health problems which make them un-adoptable (at least according to the shelters).

I've been cooking since I was a kid and I think I fell in love with preparing food for friends and family becasue I had four wonderful mentors--my two grandmas, my grandpa, and my mom. Food was a big deal in my Italian -American family. Celebrations always involved good things to eat.

I've always been an "animal person", which lead me to became a vegetarian in my teens--much to the chagrin of my grandma who worried that I would have nothing to eat. Currently, everything I cook is vegetarian which means no meat or seafood. I also frequently cook vegan recipes which means no dairy products of any kind.

I started this blog as an extension of my flickr.com account. I was posting photos of the food I made on flickr, and people were requesting the recipes. I thought a blog would be the easiest way to consolodate all of my recipes. It wasn't until about six months after its inception that my blog took on a life of its own. Now I blog first, flickr second.

I love to travel and intend to write some posts about the neat places I've been and the amazing food I've had.

The inspiration for the name of my blog comes from a Peter Seller's movie--The Party. Here's the clip:

The online cooking groups I cook along with are:

The Daring Bakers and The Daring Cooks http://thedaringkitchen.com/


The talented and amazing Blog Fairy helped me with my blog design. http://www.theblogfairy.com/

My amazing photographer friend, Lauren Miller, is kind enough to let me put up some of her photos on my blog. You can find her blog here:
http://zenmasterlaurenphotography.blogspot.com/

If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear them. My e-mail is mdurante(AT)comcast(DOT)net




I read many blogs, but here are some of my favorites:

Dish 'n' That - vegetarian cooking with a focus on local produce http://dishnthat.blogspot.com/

Gonna Go Walk the Dogs - a vegan blog from my very talented friend Janet http://gonnagowalkthedogs.vox.com/library/posts/page/1/

Kristy's Corner - the online home of my creative step-sister http://mnkristy.wordpress.com/

http://www.melbedggood.com/ Mel is an Australian blogger and she has lots of wonderful vegetarian recipes.