DiLonardo - Bake the seasons: sweet and savoury dishes to enjoy throughout the year

EVER SINCE I was sixteen, I would tell anyone whod listen that one day I would write a cookbook. Though I said this often, a big part of me never actually expected it to happen. After I graduated from university, I moved to downtown Toronto with high hopes and big dreams of a career in media, but ended up working at the Eaton Centre for minimum wage. If you had told me back then that today I would have my own lifestyle blog and be sharing my recipes with the world, I would have called you crazy and returned to folding underwear at my retail job.

I spent my nights baking and my days off exploring the city, spending every cent I could spare at the latest trendy restaurants. It wasnt long after moving to Toronto that I met Justin. On our third date, I made us dinner, and he brought banana bread for dessert. A slight miscalculation had resulted in Justin doubling the required amount of butterthis was a man after my own heart! My lonely nights of baking were soon replaced with Food Network binge-watching with Justin over a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. But my baking journey started long before Justin, with many turns and detours. Lets go back to the beginning

Growing up in a traditional Italian family meant spending hours in the kitchen with my mom and grandmothers. From an early age, I played with pasta dough instead of Play-Doh. My grandmothers were happy to take advantage of my tiny thumbs and kept me busy rolling tray after tray of cavatelli and gnocchi, and before long, I was rolling out fresh pasta dough with a hand crank from the 1960s. We also spent lots of time outdoors, picking strawberries at neighbouring farms (although, honestly, more of them made their way into my mouth than into the basket) and canning a summers worth of peaches and tomatoes from our garden. As I got older, and my overprotective grandmothers finally allowed me to use the stove and oven, I fell in love with baking. Of course I wanted to learn my grandmothers cherished recipes. However, as you may know, Italians take their recipes to the grave. I remember one day helping one grandmother to make her famous braciole, and she sent me to get more flour. When I returned, I saw that several more ingredients had been added to the mixing bowl, and when I asked what they were, she told me, Dont worry about it.

So I learned the basics from my grandmothers, but I also knew that I would have to create recipes of my own. The main lesson I took away from my years spent in the kitchen with my mom and grandmothers was how to make simple dishes with fresh, seasonal, local ingredients. No two ways about it, fresh produce tastes best when its in season. Bonus points if it was grown right in your own backyard. When fruits and vegetables are at their best, they are the star ingredients in any dish.

When I headed off to university, I quickly found myself daydreaming about recipes when I should have been paying attention to my economics professors. My sister was in her third year, which meant her dorm had a kitchen, so a few times a week I would go to her place and bake cakes, cookies and other tasty goods while she studied. While my friends went out to bars and clubs on the weekends, I was watching the Food NetworkBobby Flay, Ina Garten, Michael Smith, Giada De Laurentiis, Anna OlsonI couldnt get enough. I admired Bobbys love for grilling and using blue corn in just about everything, Giadas spin on the Italian dishes I grew up eating, Inaswell, I love everything about Ina Garten. Her confidence in the kitchen and her classic approach to cooking mixed with her enthusiasm for quality ingredients captured everything I wanted to be. When I discovered that Anna Olson lived just around the corner from where I grew up, I felt a flicker of hope: if she could do it, maybe one day I could too. But I didnt want to just mimic recipes I had seen on TV; I wanted to create my own, with the same finesse as the chefs on the Food Network. (Except for Inano one can compete with the Barefoot Contessa.)

I was always excited to return home to help prepare our annual Christmas dinner, and I begged my mom to let me help with the cookingI didnt want to just wash fruit and peel potatoes. No surprise, Mom was reluctant to give up her reigning title as the best cook in the family, but after much back-and-forthing, we came to an agreement: she would cook and I would bake. And so began a new tradition. While the first few years were a little rocky (there was a pumpkin pie fiasco I will never live down), the more I baked, the better I became. Through trial and error, practice indeed made perfect. Each year I would come up with an even fancier and better dessert than the year before. What started as Christmas baking turned into baking cakes for every family occasion.

I will always love baking for my family, yet what I really wanted was to make a career of it, and in 2013, Justin finally persuaded me to start a food blog. He wanted me to share with the world what makes me happy and what I do best. I never expected anyone to read my blogother than my family and friendsbut I dreamed that recipe developing would one day become my full-time job. I knew that success in this field would take hard work, but at the very least, having a blog would provide me with the creative outlet I desperately needed and would be the perfect place to document my latest kitchen triumphs.