Hi! I’m Niki…
Welcome to salt & pepper!
I live in San Francisco, grew up in Northern Ireland and Orange County, went to Berkeley for college, lived in SF for a year, then went back to Ireland for nine months, on to New York for just over a year, then to Orange County for a couple of months, and finally came back to San Francisco in 2007. Ah, home sweet home. I love it here. The cold. The fog. Walking everywhere even if it means hiking up a couple of hills. I feel like the luckiest girl alive that I get to wake up each morning with a view of the Golden Gate bridge, that I can walk to work if I want, that some of the best restaurants are here on my doorstep, and that if I feel like getting away I have places like Sonoma and Healdsburg an hour to the north or Paso Robles a couple of hours south. Lucky I tell you. Very very lucky.
I started this blog on a whim back in 2009, but didn’t make it official until March of 2010… I kept it private that first year while I brushed up on my html coding, discovered a few design tricks thanks to google, and figured out what on earth I was trying to accomplish here. Since then I’ve joined twitter (obsessed), downloaded every photography application that my iPhone has to offer (instagram is my fav), and signed up for a Pinterest account (omg so addictive).
salt & pepper follows my day to day adventures in cooking, eating, travel, running, travel, and entertaining.
cooking… kitchens make me happy. Well, most kitchens. Mine is preeeeetty awful (I rent) but I make do. I don’t think cooking needs to be a complicated process with lots of fancy equipment or ingredients and I want to share that with you. It should be something you enjoy, something that brings people together. Hopefully I can help make cooking something you enjoy as much as I do.
eating… as much as I love to cook, I love to eat out and try new places as well. That being said, I’m a creature of habit and if I find somewhere I love I’ll find myself returning again and again. You’ll see. Delfina Pizzeria, Beretta, Rose’s Cafe are restaurants that show up quite frequently on salt & pepper. D (my boyfriend) is such a good sport… poor guy can’t start a meal out before I’ve snapped a photo of whatever it is we’re eating. All in the name of salt & pepper!
travel… I wish this area had more of a presence on salt & pepper, but I try to make do with weekend trips as much as possible. What I love about traveling is the people you meet, the new cultures you experience, and of course the food you get to eat!
running… this is a newer adventure for me. It’s still not easy, and I am by no means fast, but the sense of accomplishment after finishing a race makes it all worthwhile. And I take pretty Golden Gate Bridge pictures that I share with you here, so you can come along on the run with me.
entertaining… what fun is it to know how to cook all these delicious recipes if you have no one to share them with? I’ll share any of the parties I throw, as well as any tips and tricks that will help make it as fun and stress free as possible.
I hope you enjoy… thanks for stopping by!
Feel free to email me at garavogue{at}gmail{dot}com or tweet me at @nikilowry!
Niki, thank you for your site and Intermezzo salad recipe. I am doing a juice feast and was thinking of what I would like to eat when I finish. I was sad to find out that our old Intermezzo was burned down. I LOVED this place it was my favorite, the bread even when I had no money I could always pass by and for 25cents pick up a slice and felt life was good. I hope I can figure out that bread recipe. I am not much of a cook but want to learn to cook healthy recipes. I was so healthy when I went to Cal in 1994 but kids and eating got me fat. Now I am doing a reboot to learn to re-eat and keep balance. thanks and God Bless Berkeley Bears..you inspired me to get more connected online. thanks and keep sharing!