About

That's me, eating gelato in Amalfi, Italy

My name is Heather Marold Thomason. I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn Oakland, California Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with my dog Francine and my husband Brad. We once founded a graphic design studio, but now I am a Butcher. Because, you know, life is a journey.

We find most of our food in our local community, and I cook every day and every meal that I can. Well, except breakfast – most of the time Brad cooks that. Rarely do we travel anywhere without searching for some unique or regional taste.

Operation Gastronomia

Once upon a time in Brooklyn, I started studying Italian at Scuola Italiana in Greenwich Village, with the goal of one day traveling to remote Italian villages where I could speak with local people and discover their culinary traditions. As my passion and understanding of the Italian language has grown, so has my love for its food and culture. Gastronomia is the Italian word for Gastronomy, the art and science of eating well. For me, it carries the importance of both cooking and sharing good food that the Italians hold so dear.

A few years later, Brad and I were on a culinary road trip in Italy (to those remote villages I’d been dreaming of) and I decided to keep a journal about it. I realized just how much I liked telling tales of our gastronomic quests and the meals we enjoyed together, and so, Operation Gastronomia was born.