She learned cooking from scratch from her Italian/French grandmother who had extensive gardens, orchards, and small animals.
She moved to Wisconsin in 1996 and acquired a 60 acre farm in the East troy area which had a biodynamic farm and a circle of friends studying the work of R. Steiner.
She has gained her expertise in colors, thanks to her gardening and her teachers, the flowers. She says that she needs to put her hand in the earth, at least a few hours a day during the spring and summer, in order to balance out her heavy duty list of books she reads to prepare for her work as a writer.
