CONTACT ME!

Hi! I’m Florentina, the voice behind the articles and recipes you’ll find around here.

Welcome to my recipe and lifestyle journal of a simple life, filled with joy and laughter and sinfully delicious recipe!

” Ciao Florentina ” is where I channel the man in the photo, my grandfather, while in search of my own dream: to share my passion for real, simple, mostly vegetarian and plant based cooking with the world.

A Food & Lifestyle Journal about the lost art of wholesome cooking and living, the perfection of imperfection, featuring simple but delicious recipes, organic wholesome ingredients, with a passion to love; in a flawed but beautiful and unique way. It is my second home where I hang my apron and my heart.

A food journal of a simple life, captured in its raw form through the lens of my Iphone (lately my Canon) as life happens, in this moment and as passed down through generations in a bowl of rustic soup.

This journey starts in the shade of an old walnut tree, by a creek covered in yellow water lilies running through poppy covered fields, in the beautiful country side…

Because I believe that real food, a simple wholesome and nutritious home cooked meal, is the greatest excuse to get people together and keep those you love close to you, and close to home.

Love is the secret ingredient that makes it all worthwhile and Peace is the only side dish you will ever need.

Florentina

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Story 

 

 

Florentina
When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.” -the alchemist

” Florentina, or the “Woman of Florence” … just a literal translation as I am living la Bella Vita under the California Sun.  It is my name where I probably got my love for the charm of the countryside, the peasants and their food.

Though I’ve been playing with food since I was a little girl, my real passion for all things food only started kicking in after my grandfather‘s passing.

I still remember him picking tomatoes and stirring the polenta pot for over one hour with a large wooden stick, then dumping it all out on the old wooden table and slicing it with a string. 

After it rained, he would put on my rubber boots, plop me on the back seat of his old rusty bike and peddled away with me to the fields, where we would sneak between bushes and thorns to gather mushrooms.  I only loved his mushrooms though, the way he made them, sauteed in olive oil with onions and salt. To this day it is my favorite way of eating them, on a thick charred bruschetta or fresh crusty bread.

There was always hard work in the peasant’s life,  poverty & sorrow but balanced by so much beauty and love. 

And that’s a good life, that’s what this blog is all about, bringing people together and celebrating life around simple healthy home cooked meals, sprinkled with love and surrounded by laughter.  It it also about reclaiming a big part of myself, a part that is vital to life, the part that makes this journey worthwhile: my Spirit!

This journey starts in the shade of an old walnut tree, by a creek covered in yellow water lilies running through poppy covered fields, in the beautiful country side of the former Eastern Roman Empire -Romania; and it continues in the Hills of beautiful California today; where I spend my days growing tomatoes and testing vegetarian recipes as Batman’s girl and mommy to our furry children: Peluci, Tesla and Nala.  Nothing fancy, but If I were to hashtag that I’d say #LifeMade !

” Ciao Florentina -Peace, Love & Food ” is the Food Memoir of a real girl who left behind society’s ideals of success to find her Dream, Passion and the meaning of Love. 

I hope you will also enjoy your time around here, grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up and stay a while.

Get inspired to go in search of your own dream, find your treasure, set the table, light a candle, dare to love someone!

Peace, Love & Food!

Florentina xo’s