The very last thing I did in Parma during my visit this past fall was to stumble into Gloria Canelli's magical apartment and gasp. Gloria is an archaeologist whose excitement for the world's little artifacts is immediately evident when you step into her home, but especially so when she takes you to her kitchen.

What amazed me most was that despite her clusters of knick-knacks and towers of memories, she cooks every single day, knows where every last utensil and pot top hides, and keeps all her ingredients in very fresh rotation. This was one of the most fascinating kitchens I'd ever seen.

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My husband and I have lived in this rental kitchen in Portland, Oregon for over a year now, and while it isn't a designer showcase space, it does have its quirks and charms. It's been the site of many cups of hot chocolate, champagne toasts, triumphs and failures, for which I'm incredibly grateful.

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I've driven by Kathy Delgado's store, Vintageweave Interiors, a dozen of times. She specializes in amazing French farmhouse style antiques and home decor. I am not sure how I got so lucky to get an invite to have lunch with her and tour her own kitchen, but I did!

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When I went to Parma, Italy a few months ago, I asked everywhere I went if someone, anyone, would let me into their home kitchen for a tour. It wasn't until the final day that a taxi-driver's dispatcher offered her mother's place right in central Parma.

Lina Germi and her husband, an electrician, live in a house originally used as wine shop and trattoria in the early 1800s. Signora Germi, a tiny woman who wears a tie every single day, says that despite her retirement, she works more now than ever, feeding her children, nephews and grandchildren, and she has a freezer full of handmade tortellini to prove it.

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Tamar Adler, accomplished chef and author of culinary memoir The Everlasting Meal as well as many published articles, is generous and passionate about fresh homemade food. Her Brooklyn kitchen is roomy, practical and functional—a place where wild tomato canning parties for 20 unfold and quiet solitary cups of tea are sipped. It's a delightful place, where I wanted to stay and chat and pick the brain some more of one of my favorite authors.

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Earlier this autumn, I was invited by Rainier Fruit Company to spend a day in their orchards, seeing how apples are harvested and brought to market. It's an astonishing mix of old-school and modern — all the apples are picked by hand in orchards that don't look much different than they did decades ago, but then they get scanned back at the sorting facility by computers that can spot that one sneaky bruised apple in a group of thousands. Ever wonder how that perfect, shiny apple wound up at your grocery store? It probably looked something like this. More

When Glenn and Paula Foore decided to start a small community garden in their East Austin back yard, little did they know that within one short year it would manifest itself fully as Springdale Farm, a small yet vibrant urban farm taking up less than 5 acres just 3 miles east from the state Capitol in Austin, Texas. Just as unexpectedly, their kitchen became a place for passionate chefs — to whom the farm now supplied farm-to-table offerings — to transform fresh ingredients into healthy meals. At Apartment Therapy last week we toured this couple's beautiful pier-and-beam style farmhouse, and today we'll get a closer look at the very heart and soul of their home: the cozy kitchen.

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Who: Sarah Curtis-Fawley
What: Pacific Pie Co.
Where: Portland, Oregon

While I've always considered myself a chocolate cake over fruit pie person (I'm a diehard chocoholic, what can I say!), a slice of Sarah's apple sour cream streusel just about converted me. The flaky, buttery crust paired with local gala apples and crunchy topping bowled me over with its delicate balance of flavor, texture and natural sweetness. Just in time for Thanksgiving (prime pie season!) join us for a tour of this Portland-based pie shop. More

Francis and his wife Jane rent a formerly raw loft in an overlooked but very well located neighborhood in Manhattan. Despite the bare bones of the space, they've managed to make it their own. Francis (an architect) built a full bathroom, a number of bedrooms for the couple's growing family, and a whole new kitchen, which is bright and welcoming and one of the first things one encounters after the long hallway entrance to their apartment.

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If you follow Deb Perelman on her enormously popular blog, Smitten Kitchen, you are already familiar with one part of her East Village, NYC home kitchen very well. There is a 36-inch span of black speckled countertop where she preps, plates and shoots just about anything that ends up on the pages of the site. It's the same little nook, perched high above a busy avenue, blessed with perfect afternoon light, that serves as the set for most of the more than 300 photos in her new book, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.

So when Deb invited me over to cook with her, I jumped at the chance to see the teeny-tiny rental kitchen for myself.

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