Me (foreground) with my husband (covering face in center background) at one of our favorite Oakland restaurants

My name is Laura Smith Borrman (Smith is the new middle). I’m a Northern California native who’s lived throughout the West Coast plus a stint in the Midwest – and currently write, cook and eat from a little house in urban Oakland, California, where I live with my husband and our two young children. I love Paris. I love New York. I love goofy things and love to dance (especially in a goofy way). I do not love pickled cucumbers, but adore every other kind of pickled vegetable.

I have worked many jobs – in bakeries, public radio, for big oil and a major airline, in nonprofits, a think tank, consulting agencies and luxury hotels. Writing, interviewing (and in some specific roles, food creation and promotion) has always been at the core of my professional experience. As part of those jobs, I’ve met a lot of interesting people, including a few celebrities. Some of those people will be featured here.

For more about why I started this blog, see my first post, “Harkening Back (and No Time Like the Present).”

As of 2015, I also now blog at discoveringvintagesanfrancisco.com, a space devoted to extra content from my new (second) book, Discovering Vintage San Francisco (Globe Pequot Press, August 2015).