Hi! My name is Lisa Marietta Gianotti. Well that is my given name. I was born in San Francisco, California to a full blooded Italian dad and a full blooded Slavic mom. My mom is my entertainment and the food goddess of the family.

I have always craved sugar! Italian desserts are my heritage and my first request for baked goodies. My mom learned how to cook them like a pro - thanks to my Italian grandma's input. My mom was (and still is) an avid cook. She lives to straighten her cupboards and rearrange the refrigerator. She has mentally inventoried and memorized every item in her pantry back to the last row of 3 year old cans. Unfortunately as I was growing up she felt her calling was to monitor my sugar intake. When she said, "Only three cookies after dinner," I felt ripped off.

When I was in elementary school, my mom began to travel down the hippie-earth-road-culture. We were planting fruit trees, eating out of our garden, distilling our water, and grinding our own wheat - and I began calling mom by her first name, Marilyne. By then Marilyne had changed her philosophy on dessert. I no longer came home to fresh baked cookies, but snacks of organic carrots and mustard were now the after-school treat. UGH. When I hit high school the desserts dried up altogether!

When we did get that one sacred dessert Marilyne substituted ingredients with the fear factor foods of the day - carob, wheat germ, or some other hidden obscure health crystal. I couldn't shake my sweet tooth and buy into her latest cooking tangent. All I could think about was - when was the next holiday?

My Italian grandmas and aunts planned their holiday recipes months ahead. And when we celebrated, the dessert table was loaded with real desserts - full of gooey buttery sugary stuff that dripped off the platter.

At sixteen I began to ask my grandma for her recipes. She loaded me up with her recipe cards, her friend's recipes (which her own critique) - and many of her Italian civic organizations' cookbooks. I use these cookbooks today. The food stained pages carry many memories.

In my twenties (wow - was I really twenty?) I began to make my grandmas recipes. Husband number one was a picky eater, but he loved anything my grandma cooked. So I aimed to please. (Yeah, whatever.) I was only experimenting a little for fear of violating his finicky taste buds.

After 19 years of marriage we UNamicably parted ways. I became a single mom and the two youngest kids were homebodies. They rarely wanted to eat out and after a long day of staring at a computer chained to a cube, I was content coming home to cook. My dormant cooking skills began to blossom ever so slowly when my sister moved in to share our home. And after awhile, I soon deemed myself a true food snob as my Italian roots began to take hold of my recipes.

Today the youngest two are teen-agers. And still very rarely will I hear them say, "Can we go out to eat?" Well, I do hear that when they are starving and we pass by a fast food place. To which I reply, "I don't buy fast food. I don't believe in it. If you have your own money we will stop."

In November of 2008 I married a wonderful man who enjoys fulfilling my dream of an onsite sous chef.






(OK, obviously not my husband - wax museum in Vegas)





But my husband truly does love my cooking and helps with anything I need. And this really is a photo of us. (Do I need to specify the photo on the right?) He loves my cooking! And the biggest treat - he will chop, mince, dice or cook with me EVERY NIGHT! He takes order real well!

With our blended family of 5 kids (4 still at home) the kids are THRILLED I have this site. They eat things they would have never tried like, fig cookies and pear cake.





Our house is filled with very little prepackaged or processed foods. I cook from scratch every night. And since we eat nutritious, exercise regularly, desserts are my one vice. (Oh, yeah and wine too! ) My sugar lust gene is still alive. I want at least six cookies at a setting (or more)! And it's really hard to tell the kids they can't have six cookies when I'm slamming half a dozen down myself.

I have made each and every one of the desserts on this site. With my large family most of these recipes are gone within a day or two (or an hour).

I have fun making them, experimenting with them, and overall sharing them! I love this site! I love to eat! And what could be better than put all of those together!

May you, your friends, and family enjoy these Italian desserts too!

Buon Appetito!

Lisa

Recipe for toilet paper cake - COMING SOON!