We don’t just make breakfast,
We Make Mornings

I never really cooked until I got married and moved to Australia. That’s because I never needed to. Literally raised in a restaurant, all I ever had to do was place an order. Childhood weekends were at grandma’s house.

Grandma and my Great Aunt carefully prepared farm fresh food. Peeling, preparing, cooking, repeat. Daily meals enjoyed, and packaging preserves until the next harvest. This is where my “seed-to-stem” philosophy originated. I realize now, it wasn’t just preserving food, but preserving a culinary heritage. I watched as I played, I watched as I nibbled, I watched as I ran through the kitchen with wild abandon. Mesmerized at rituals like “the sauce” made from bushels of ripe tomatoes, there was an honest respect for ingredients, and a joy found in the journey.

Back in the restaurant, dad would spend hours making stocks and reductions from scratch. Laboriously breaking down a side of beef, butchering the cuts, utilizing every ounce. Nothing was wasted. My “play” was peeling, chopping, and experimenting with food. As if through osmosis, my mom likewise taught me her ways. The art of serving and the responsibility of leading. How to be tough, and fair; how to be determined, and gracious.

Eventually we landed back home in Windham, working alongside my parents at their hotel Albergo Allegria, Italian for the “Inn of Happiness.” The gift of hospitality was cultivated, watered by the sweat of young entrepreneurship. After 37 years the time was right to offer our breakfast creations to non-lodging guests, we were propelled by the arrival of TripAdvisor’s 2018 “Top 25 Small Hotels in the USA” award. Affectionately named “&Breakfast by Albergo,” the open house was December, 2019. Then, there was the economic shutdown. What does a restaurant kid do? Pivot!

During the dead-quiet months that followed March of 2020, several initiatives were born. For nine consecutive weeks I filmed Facebook LIVE cooking demos every day. Albeit for my own sanity, viewers joined my journey where I dove down culinary rabbit holes of creation and revisited flavors of my childhood. Footage was honest, raw, and featured an “Education Meets Comic Relief” approach. At this same time  “Albergo at Home” initiative was born where labor-intensive items, like our “Private Reserve Preserves” were available for purchase alongside pop-up dinner meals inspired by my curiosity of Moroccan and Indian flavors. Then, enter the invention of my Quiche Kit…. a homemade butter-crust pastry (the way my Grandma showed me) with build-your-own flavor profiles that any culinary novice could assemble and bake at home. The best of all, was a recreation of the Australian Meat Pie – artisan made and hand rolled pastry with slowly cooked beef and onions… a trip to Leslie’s homeland without the airfare! As we roll with the ups and downs of tourism trends, these recipes will come back out of their binders and created for all to enjoy once again. 

New approaches to the summer of 2023, my “Kitchen of Happiness” will share delicious grab-and-go creations. Our House Recipe Granola, Biscotti Signature Lenore, Vito’s-Stock-Pot-Inspired-Soups, and Simply Sublime Snacks will be available for purchase. I’m excited to share with you, more aromas and flavors from my childhood.