Andrea tells stories with the things she makes through art, food, design and writing. Her first cookbook, “Ciderhouse Cooking” released in May 2018.
Her food passions sparked when she moved to Italy to study fresco painting and restoration. There she learned the story and cultural significance of cooking and its intersection with the arts that would quickly become part of a lifelong fascination. She spent her time exploring the intimacy of the Italian culture, with mothers, grandmothers, master cheesemakers, and artisans.
Andrea traded her paintbrush for pen, graduating from Columbia University in Journalism with awards in social justice reporting. She has since worked as reporter covering the environment in Northern California. But she also stayed close to her passion for food, writing for newspapers and magazines such Gourmet and Saveur and hosting tours to discover Italian regional foods and is currently the culinary artist in residence at the Montalvo Arts Center in Silicon Valley. She is a former fellow of Autodesk's artist in residency program in San Francisco working in digital fabrication and the culinary director of Bloomfield Farms in Sonoma County.
Andrea’s interests have always been related to geography — she seeks to discover the stories each dish or individual can tell whether it’s from the highlands of Tibet or from the ecosystems of California. My American Pantry (MAP) is an extension of her geographic quest to follow food back to where it’s made. This time, she has chosen to focus on artisan food, its rebirth in the US, its makers, its terroir and how she can incorporate the knowledge in her own artful creations.