The idea for à la keit­tiö started when, after dis­cussing hol­i­day din­ner plans with a friend, I was asked to send along some of the recipes I enjoy cook­ing. I admit freely I started this blog not as a method of shar­ing the love of cook­ing with oth­ers or cre­at­ing new, pro­found, gastronomically-shattering recipes — I did it out of sheer lazi­ness. When some­one asks me for a recipe now, I can just refer them to the site! Granted, I love cook­ing and like dis­cussing it with oth­ers, but that wasn’t the pri­mary rea­son for this site!

As for the name, it’s a lit­tle mix­ture of French and Finnish — two cul­tures that con­tinue to play a large influ­ence on my own cook­ing and eat­ing pref­er­ences (though that’s not to imply I’m a close-minded eater — not at all! I have a pol­icy of try­ing any­thing at least once).

As for Chez San­ta­nen, it’s a lit­tle home filled with four cats, one hairy dog, a not-so-hairy boyfriend and yours-truly. It’s usu­ally a mad­house around here, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you’d like to con­tact me, please feel free to use the form below! I can’t always promise I’ll get back to you in a timely man­ner, but I will most cer­tainly try.

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