About Christine Burns Rudalevige

It’s hard to believe that I’ve eaten over 38,000 meals, but assuming three square meals a day – and taking into account that some skipped breakfasts were amply made up for in late-night refrigerator raids – that’s my best estimate.

By the law of averages, some of those obviously had to be crap, easily forgettable mid-bite.  However there have also been many, many meals that have been memorable, very memorable indeed.

Like the time when my eager-to-impress new boyfriend (now husband) took the wide-eyed 25-year-old me to Spiaggia in Chicago and spent twice the price of our plane tickets on dinner that included duck ravioli, roasted squab and rack of lamb. 

Or when my foodie friend and I went into the garden of the Italian villa we were staying at in Todi, Umbria, picked zucchini blossoms, stuffed them with bufala mozzarella, coated them with a bit of farina, fried them in the establishment’s own olive oil, and had them on our plates on the terrace within 20 minutes. 

Or the first time I took part in tapas and Sangria with about 10 friends in Cambridge (MA).  I’d tell you more about the tapas but I truly only remember it was the first time a tasted goat cheese (it was baked in a tomato sauce) and that I over did it on the sangria.

Or when I had the privilege of sampling the contents of the cheese basket pulled down from its hanging haven among the kitchen beams in the 14-century Loire-Valley mill where we visited relatives.

Or as I ordered Norfolk fish pie and sipped Woodforde’s Wherry at cellar temperature when we first moved to England.

Or regular Sunday afternoon lunches on our deck in central Pennsylvania where we continue to eat whatever it is the local farmers produce this week. 

I could go on and on, which is exactly what I plan to do in this food blog.