Skye McAlpine, author of the successful blog From My Dining Table, offers an insider's view of Venetian home cooking, complemented by her stunning photography. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the city of Venice each year, dining in trattorias and leaving the city having eaten in Venice, but not having eaten well. It is the food prepared in households, made from local ingredients, the recipes that have been passed down through generations – which Venetians passionately guard for their own enjoyment – that defines Venetian cuisine. It is romantic and exotic. It plays with spices and delightfully unfamiliar flavors. It includes pine nuts and raisins, bay leaves and sweet vinegar, enchanting saffron and creamy mascarpone. It is the legacy of a maritime republic that once sailed the seas, gathering culinary treasures from far-off lands such as Turkey, Greece, and China.