In the first installment of our column on Toronto food bloggers, we talk with Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice.

When did you start your blog?
I started my blog in December 2005.

How did you come up with the name?
I had been thinking about starting a blog for awhile early in 2005, but couldn’t think of a name that I was happy with. That year I read Marlena De Blasi’s A Thousand Days in Venice. There are several accounts in the book of how the author and her husband would visit their favourite bakery and buy some espresso and some freshly baked pastries and then go enjoy them by the water. It occurred to me that I’d like to have that experience one day of enjoying a pastry in beautiful Venice. Because cream puffs are the first real pastries that I tried and learned how to make, I decided on the name Cream Puffs in Venice.

Does your blog have a specific focus or area of coverage?
My blog posts tend to focus on baking sweets and on Italian food. I also do cookbook reviews.

Where do you get the ideas for the topics you cover in your blog?

For the most part, I write about recipes from cookbooks that I own that I am finally trying. I prepare and write about whatever recipe happens to strike my fancy. Sometimes I’m influenced by time of year (holidays, etc) and sometimes simply by cravings!

What is your favourite post that you’ve written?
This is a tough one. I would say that one of my favourite posts is “Doing the Tomatoes” which is all about our family tradition of making tomato sauce every year.

What is your favourite thing to cook? To eat?
I don’t know if I have one favourite food to cook or eat, but I certainly enjoy baking more than anything. I love to bake cookies and pies. In terms of cooking, I really love making pasta, especially from scratch.

Favourite kitchen utensil/gadget?
This one is easy … my KitchenAid mixer. Hands down!

Name a famous person you’d love to cook dinner for.
I’d love to cook dinner for Nigella Lawson. I’m a big fan of her attitude towards food and her style of entertaining.

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Chocolate.

Tell us about your best and worst dining experiences.
I’ve had many wonderful dining experiences. If I had to choose just one, I’d choose a family dinner that we had once at a little restaurant in a place called Martinsicuro in the region of Abruzzo in Italy. I remember that there were no menus. My entire family simply strolled into the restaurant one summer night, sat down and told the restaurant staff that we wanted to eat. So began a multi-course meal of fish and seafood that was unforgettable! As for worst dining experience, that’s a tough one too. But I have to say the worst was that I was once at a sushi restaurant and actually saw a mouse crawling by the area where the chefs were preparing the sushi. Very disturbing!

Name some of your favourite food bloggers.
Béa of La Tartine Gourmande
Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini
Lis of La Mia Cucina
Peabody of Culinary Concoctions by Peabody
Anita of Dessert First
Helene of Tartelette

Any other places readers can check out your writing?
While I used to contribute to some other food blogging sites, I now only write for my blog. Between baking for the blog, running the Daring Bakers with my co-founder Lis of La Mia Cucina, work, family and my goal of starting a baking business from my home, I just don’t have time to do more writing.