I have a Rhode Island cookbook, which I like because it is filled with seafood recipes, and it was sent to me by Lori in a swap. It made me want to visit RI. My favorite U.S. regions for food are Louisiana and New England, and NE only for the seafood. I like regional Texan food but don't feel the need for a cookbook, since I grew up there. Most American food is not that interesting to me - it's generally not spicy enough for me and uses way too much dairy. I prefer recipes that do not rely on salt and black pepper for flavor. There are so many other more interesting ways to season food, and therefore I generally collect cookbooks from other cuisines, particularly ones that don't use dairy products and emphasize seafood instead. I grew up about 180 miles from the coast, but after the age of 18, I've almost always lived within 30 miles of the coast, and since 23 I've mostly lived within 4 miles of the coast, except for the 3-1/2 years I lived in Austin, when I went back to university for my second degree. I like coastal food. Lars

I liked her earlier shows more than the ones since the $1 houses began. I think it all started with the Minihaha (totally misspelled I'm sure) house. After that one she's cheezed out on stuff more, probably because she sank a LOT into that place and didn't really get it back. The latest one (I think), omg I would have been all over all that stuff! I have an old sunbeam mixer like the one they found in that house-although it's in my attic and I use my 4C kitchenaid instead since I have some of the Hobart attachments for it. I also don't care for her color choices. black and white, black and white...gray...and the latest house, the exterior, with the detail work painted in pink and the house brownish-ick. There's a house in the city we used to live in, that had similar details, but the whole place was painted various pink/maroon shades with some white, and it looked MUCH better. ALTHOUGH, I have to say, DH laughs when we watch it because I'm a lot like her with salvage. There was one episode that involved her collection of old doors and she said something like "why do I have all these old doors" and before she could answer herself I said "because they're so cool" or something like that-then she said the exact same thing (I'm having an issue with storage of salvage myself, with a small house and no basement, although I DO still have a small collection of old doors anyway, lol).

I bought a house with a backyard that is a former 60 years old citrus grove, one of the reasons I bought this specific house. The north part of the grove was Washington Navels and the south part was Valencia. The original home owners planted Minneola Tangelo and a Pink Blush Grapefruit, now 40 years old. Originally I was working on restoring it to look like the grove it once was but now I"m adding enough that it will look different as I have too many trees to fit. It originally had about 18 full size 20' diameter trees but I'm adding a few different varieties and have 58 original trees plus trees planted plus trees in pots to plant. WAY too many so one 100' side is now going to be Espaliered citrus along the wall. Still have 6-7 in pots in the front walk. Another 5 different Avocados. Just grapefruit: Pink Blush, Duncan, Oro Blanco, Melogold, Rio Red, Valentine, Cocktail, Chandler Pomello. Of course, this many trees in drought stricken SoCal is a problem so I now am working on 1920 gallon rain water recovery and grey water recovery system. In the meantime, I have 8 42 gallon trash cans in the inside roof corners that get filled each rainstorm so I water with almost all rainwater recovery. I'm not addicted, really!

My mother's parent's both immigrated from Italy - small villages in the Italian Alps not far from the Swiss border. My mother's parents also immigrated from northern Italy, Piemonte to be be more exact -- one from a small village north of Torino, and one from a small city (they met in Los Angeles). I made contact with her father's family, or rather a cousin in Torino searched and found us in California. I visited, and went with my cousin to see where the family originated. We went to the municipio, and for a few centesimi, obtained a copy of my grandfather's birth certificate. They still had huge ledgers with handwritten entries for births going back centuries -- the small number of people living there probably made storage of the ledgers possible. My father's father returned to his town in Toscana in his last years; I visited his grave so I have his date of death. I wrote the province and asked for information on his birth and death certificates, and surprisingly received an answer. I qualify to apply for Italian citizenship based on my father's father, or at least I did the last I checked, but other circumstances tossed a roadblock and long detour in my path. With the current rise of the Italian far right, I'm not sure I want to take the chance of reliving the days of fascists brawling in the streets.