ABOUT ME

Welcome to Brooklyn Salt.  My name is Dorie Colangelo and I live in, you guessed it, Brooklyn.  I was a musician for 17 years before I decided to pursue my other passion…cooking.  As a singer/songwriter, I worked with amazing musicians, producers and managers and got one of my songs in the recent film “Peace, Love and Misunderstanding” starring Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, Chase Crawford and Elizabeth Olsen.  Music has been a fun ride but lately the kitchen has been calling my name.  I love reading cookbooks and food memoirs, watching food television and trying out Manhattan and Brooklyn’s hottest new restaurants, food trucks and food stands.  I take all that inspiration, plus what I’ve learned from my Italian parents, who are both amazing cooks, and bring it all into my kitchen, adding my own spin.

I’ve always loved to cook.  My fondest culinary memories are shucking peas for my mom’s spring vegetable pasta, picking figs and Sicilian squash called “gagootz” in my Nonna’s garden in Brooklyn, making fork marks in her fresh gnocchi, punching risen dough for my Dad’s Sunday night pizzas and perfecting the meringue cookie on weekends in my early teens.

Last year, after having posted quite a few pictures of my weeknight dinners on Facebook, my sister told me that I was weird, and also that I should really start a food blog…and so I did.  Brooklyn Salt came to life in January 2012 and has been my obsession ever since.

Brooklyn Salt is hip food simplified. You’ll find that almost all Brooklyn Salt recipes have a manageable number of ingredients and have two to four servings because not many people actually have a need for more than six servings unless they have a huge family or a dinner party to feed (which if you do, you can double or triple the recipes).  You can also use the search bar to get ideas on how to use extra ingredients so they don‘t go to waste, like that big bag of celery left over from making chicken salad or that big bushel of herbs left over from when you used just a pinch.

I am constantly coming up with new ideas, but I can only eat so much, so week by week I steadily post my creations and adaptations hoping that they will inspire you to get in your kitchen and cook.  I love styling my shots, many of which are taken on my iPhone in daylight.  There are also many gorgeous shots taken by my boyfriend on his fancy Canon, and I pay him in forkfuls of whatever’s cooking.

I hope you enjoy Brooklyn Salt, cook often and send comments and suggestions my way.

Buon Appetito!

-Dorie

Dorie's recipes are featured on Food52.com, TasteSpotting.com, FoodGawker.com, FoodPornDaily.com, SimpleDish.com and Recipe-Kitchen.com.


Above photo by Coralina Meyer