If you have been following my posts from the beginning, you will have read about my travels in Friuli up until 2004. It was the beginning of that year that I decided to write Flavors of Friuli. For a couple years, I had sporadically pursued travel writing as a second career but found it most unfulfilling. Not only was the constant rejection getting to me, but I found it difficult to concentrate on multiple projects. I much preferred the long-term task of writing a book. I also found myself being drawn with a passion to food-related topics—particularly the cuisine of Friuli, since it was, at that time, relatively unknown. And so, one day, the idea for my book was born. I took my first “research” trip in February 2004; then, over the next two years, there were three more trips, during every season and to every corner of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Along the way, I interviewed chefs, talked to the local people, collected cookbooks—and practically ate my way through the region. I savored goulasch at the top of Monte Santo di Lussari near Tarvisio; I gorged on a piatto misto of at least six types of pork in Trieste’s oldest buffet; and I devoured countless pastries in bakeries from Aquileia to Zuglio.
Stay tuned for future posts that will recount the tales of my further travels in Friuli—this time armed with a purpose.
