Mio Dio, Firenze!

Florence has been my Holy Grail of travels since I was about 6 years old.  Something about seeing the pictures of medieval streets, hearing about the Duomo, and of course, the David in the Accademia has called to me...Such history and beauty.  Florence certainly delivered all of that to us, and so much more.  My two favorite things about the city were the Ponte Vecchio, which made me feel as if I were in medieval times just by walking across it, and the age-old towns scattered throughout Tuscany that we visited while there.  Oh, and Michelangelo's four Unfinished Slaves, housed in the same corridor as the David sculpture, but don't get as much recognition.  I had not heard much of these sculptures before seeing them, but was enthralled by the fact that while named Unfinished, Michelangelo seemed to have purposely made them look unfinished...meaning, perhaps they ARE finished...
However, Kevin and I were not so impressed by the food in Florence.  While we had a lot of wonderful wines (and brought a few Chianti's home with us from the Tuscan vineyards), we did not seem to find any amazing food there.  Good, but not great. Maybe we just went to the wrong places, I don't know.
There was, however, incredible shopping in Florence.  Yes, I did purchase a Florentine leather handbag, which I was quite excited about.  I was also excited about the shoes there, though I did not buy any (somehow).

A wall of shoes outside a shop in Florence.

View from the walls of Monteriggioni, a super tiny Tuscan village.

Grape vines from a vineyard in the Chianti region.

View of Tuscan hills from atop the village of San Gimignano

Kevin sat in with the jazz band playing in our favored restaurant in Florence, the Golden View.

What is left of my vegetable pasta and Kevin's.....what else?....gnocchi.

A close of of my vegetable pasta and all it's parmesan glory.

Happy Hour in Florence consisted of these orange drinks which I am still not entirely sure what they contain.  I know there is Prosecco in there, and I know they were delicious.  

A view of Ponte Vecchio from the next bridge up, the bridge with the four seasons at each corner.

Kevin also found a street band to sit in with in Siena.  Apparently they made A LOT of Euro.

Ohhhh Positano!

Positano was our second stop on our honeymoon, and is perhaps the most wonderful place on earth.  It was so. incredibly. beautiful.  I cannot put into words, or even show with pictures, my love for the Amalfi Coast.  It was our longest stay (4 nights), and we left wishing it were longer.




View from our fantastic hotel room

One night we were at the square on the water drinking a glass of wine, and there was an old Italian woman fishing with just a hook and a line - no pole, net, or anything else.  Kevin started to try to speak with her, and in the very few English words she knew and lots of hand motions, she was able to tell us that yes, she ate what she caught, and she was normally able to catch enough for the next day or two.  She opened a plastic grocery bag and showed us a fish and a sea anemone.  She quietly walked up and down the length of the square, casting out her simple hook and line with an amazingly strong arm.  At one point she paused, looked over at us, and pointed out to the water. "Barricuda", she said simply, pulling her line in so it wouldn't be cut by the fish's sharp teeth.  We looked past her pointing finger, and saw a very large, dark fish (apparently barricuda's in Italy are dark brown, not silvery blue like those in South America) prowling through the water.  It made me shiver.  We saw another (or maybe the same), some time later. As I had drunk a few glasses of wine, this resulted in me dancing and shimmying while singing Heart's Barricuda.


Kevin (not a barricuda) swimming in the sea

Obviously, this was the place for Kevin to get some amazing seafood.  I was perfectly content to fill up on pasta, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and, of course, lots of wine. One memorable meal we had was at La Tagliata, a restaurant recommended by our driver on our way to Positano.  A shuttle picked us up at our hotel and took us and about a dozen others, up the mountain on some very narrow and rickety roads.  Looking out the window of the shuttle, it looks like you are flying off the cliff - quite exhilarating! When we got to the restaurant, we walked in and were greeted by Pepe, and given a little table along the windows, which overlooked the cliffs and the sea.  It was beautiful.  The restaurant was family-style, so everyone was served the same thing.  We ordered a bottle of white wine, and were then tempted with about a dozen small plates of appetizers, including caprese salad, a zucchini rice salad, bruschetta, sauteed spinach, peas, cheeses, and so much more.  It was so good, and I am quite sure I could have filled up on these things alone.  But then we were served a salad, and after that, four types of pasta, and then Kevin got a whole platter of meat to himself.  The meal was finished with a couple types of desserts (the only one I recognized was tiriamisu), and limoncello, which originated on the Amalfi Coast (and let me tell you, the lemons there were as big as your head!).

Pepe, the waiter (and son of the Owners/cooks) at La Tagliata

The last night we were in Positano, we ate at a restaurant, Buca di Bacco, that was recommended to us by our waiter in Rome.  This is where Kevin ate multiple sorts of seafood.  In my opinion, it was pretty gross and I was unable to look at it, but he said the seafood platter was delicious.  As it was our last night in Positano, we splurged and ordered more food than we really needed.  I had eggplant croquettes, which were delicious, and Kevin ordered fried meat ravioli as our appetizers.  I ate a lot of bread that night, and also fell in love with Italian "pretzels", while Kevin had the seafood platter.  I also ordered my spaghetti pomodoro (yes, again!), and Kevin ordered gnocchi (yes, again! - what can I say, we know what we like!).




Eggplant croquettes

Ahh, the seafood platter - anchovies, calamari, a small catfish (whole), and much more

More seafood, blech

Bread and "pretzels"

Fried Ravioli

Kevin's gnocchi

Spaghetti pomodoro, my favorite

A super cute cappuccino

The meal was delicious and ended with super-cute cappuccinos, but overall, I will remember Positano for it's breathtaking views from every direction, lemons as big as your head (and the scent of them everywhere), perfectly clear blue water, and very happy people.  It was the best four days of my life.

When In Rome

It's been a while since I have posted anything, but I feel like I have a good excuse, in that it was my honeymoon, so I wasn't suppsoed to do anything I didn't feel like doing right now.  However, a month later, I suppose it's time to come back to reality.  Plus, I have a million things to share about our most amazing trek through Italy. 
I think the best way to to this is to go through each city, one post at a time.
Rome first, since that's where we flew in to. As I look back at it, I love that city more and more.  Obviously, it was amazing since it was our first stop, and we were all excited and giddy about being in Europe, and NOT in Pittsburgh or at work. ;)

So here it is, Rome through our eyes (with maybe a few words of description).



Our very first food stop in Italy - gelato, of course!  Pistachio was my tried and true favorite.  We did not miss one day of gelato in the entire 2 weeks we were in Italy. It was THAT GOOD.

 

Sitting in the courtyard of our hotel in Rome, we ended our nights with a(nother) bottle of wine next to the fountain.

Italian happy hours are amazing!  Buy one drink, and they offer all you can eat appetizers, including pizza, bruschetta, and so many other yummy foods. It was amazing.  The drinks weren't bad either.....!



And speaking of food, our favorite restaurant of the entire trip (we went twice) was Trattoria Cadorna dal 1947, as noted on the bottle of water here.

A tomato-based farro soup and a pear and walnut salad were the beginnings of our first meal here.

Which was followed by bruschetta with grilled vegetables.  Delicious!!

My spaghetti pomodor was perfecto!

Kevin was very pleased with his gnocchi as well.

And a perfect ending to a perfect meal - tiriamisu and cappucino, on the house from our very nice waiter.

St. Peter's Square, meet Morgan.  Morgan, meet St. Peter's.

 

After a day at the Forum and Colisseum, the Spanish Steps offered a nice spot to rest and people watch.

All Mixed Up, Like Breakfast For Dinner

Yesterday I had high hopes to get out of work a bit early, go to the gym, and then go home and cook dinner.  I had my menu planned out - a butternut squash and rosemary type-pizza to use up that squash that has been staring at me from the top of my refrigerator for the last 2 weeks, a pear and arugula salad, and peach cobbler (that will save for another day's post).  But, plans many times fail, and by the time I got out of work, it was much later than anticipated, and let's be honest, I was too damn tired to even think about cooking a full-on meal.  On my way to the gym, Kevin called me to let me know he would be stopping by his grandfather's and then having dinner at his parent's house, so my motivation lessened even more. After a nice hour-long workout session, I was hungry, and wanted something easy, and most of all, quick.  But not unhealthy, processed quick.  I did a mental inventory of my cupboards and refrigerator, and landed on the dozens of wholewheat banana pancakes (thank you 100DaysofRealFood!) I had made and frozen a month or so ago. Perfect! Breakfast for dinner! There was a recipe from 101 Cookbooks for Herbed Cream Cheese Eggs that I have been wanting to try, so I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the ingredients. After a quick run through the grocery store on my way home, (and after a shower!), I was ready to go. 

The recipe for the eggs can be found here, the recipe for the banana pancakes is here, and of course, the pictures of everything I did are below.

 

I actually followed the recipe but didn't have any tarragon, so omitted that and made up for it with the oregano and thyme.  These eggs were seriously rich, but so amazing. 

I heated up my frozen pancakes, topped them with some vanilla bean maple syrup, and threw on to the plate a few veggie sausage breakfast links for some added protein.

Let me tell you, when I made the perfect bite by layering the pancake with a bite of veg-sausage and some of the eggs, I was in heaven.  And yes, I did have a Bloody Mary. Perfection.

And It Was Delicious

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Kevin and I are huge fans of Thai food, and, while I have been attempting to expand my culinary expertise in the foreign realm, there are some foods in this realm that I can't quite get right yet.  While I achieved a fantastic Pad Thai finally, I have had quite a difficult time getting my curries right.  I am not sure if it is the fact that I do not use fish sauce in them, or if somethign else is lacking, but my sauces just don't tend to have the depth that a good Thai curry should have. 
About a month ago, Kevin and I realized we had been told by numerous people about a good Thai restaurant here in Pittsburgh (Hello, Oxymoron), called The Smiling Banana Leaf.  First of all, I love the name of this restaurant.  It actually makes me smile every time I say or hear it. So we went. And it was delicious. 

As many places are in Pennsylvania (the capitol of making it hard to buy liquor of any sort), it was a BYOB.  I am actually starting to like this concept though - it means I can bring a decent bottle of wine and not pay more than double for it at the restaurant. So I stuck a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in my purse, and off we went one Friday night.  The Smiling Banana Leaf is on a corner in the East Liberty area, and quite small.  We walked in and were barely able to fit in the door near the hostess stand whiel we waited for a table.  The dozen or so tables were packed with people, and steaming plates of food came out of the small kitchen and past us as we waited, unpatiently.  Fortunately, we did not have to wait long.  About 10 minutes after walking in the door, we were seated, and our wine was opened and poured for us (not even a corkage fee!).  After skimming the menu, I quickly decided what I wanted - my go-to Thai dish of green curry with tofu. I also LOVE spring rolls (the fried ones), so ordered those as well.  Kevin, as usual, took a bit more time to decide, and then wanted to switch some things up.  The poor waitress did not speak a lot of English, and was quickly confused by Kevin's questions.  Ultimately, he ordered the pumpkin curry, as well as his own spring rolls (the raw ones). The spring rolls were good - not the best I have ever had, but certainly good. In true Kevin fashion, our table was adorned with multiple types of sauces, and I really enjoyed their peanut dipping sauce.  Our entrees came out, and we dug in.  The only complaint I really had was that I had asked for a spice level of 3 (Kevin had asked for 7), and mine was spicier than his, but that did not stop me from basking in delight of that green curry sauce, with all its depth and flavor.  Vegetables like bell pepper, broccoli, and green beans floated in the broth, and there was a LOTof tofu in there as well, which is always appreciated and not always found.  Kevin enjoyed his pumpkin curry with chicken, which was sweeter than the green, and had the flavor more like a red curry.  The vegetables in his included carrots, peas, and onions. 
And it was delicious.

The Foreign Noodle, Unveiled

What started this entire blog was my 20-some-year-in-the-making desire to create my own restaurant.  I think I was in junior high when I came up with the name The Foreign Noodle, and just by naming it, it became something semi-real to me - my ultimate Holy Grail in life, I suppose.  Now, mind you, I have never thought of the Foreign Noodle as my life's work.  I have never gone to culinary school, and while I would certainly like to, I do not know if it is written in the stars for me.  I am not sure I can justify going to school for something that I am unsure would benefit me or my family.  Mostly, I don't see myself doing well in a restaurant under someone else. This is perhaps my downfall, as restaurant experience is crucial to owning and maintaining a restaurant of one's own.  However, the thought has continued and been built in my mind.
The original thought for my restaurant was that it would strictly consist of various types of pasta dishes.  As the ultimate pasta lover, especially in elementary and junior high school where spaghetti was my go-to when anyone asked what I wanted to eat (and yes, I was known to eat it for breakfast at times), this still does not sound like an entirely bad idea. I think I would work a little more outside of strictly pasta by including salads,sides, breads, and soups, but would like to keep the theme going, overall.
When I think of the Foreign Noodle, I think of something more along the lines of the vibe from Horn o Plenty, which I spoke of in my last post - making enough of what is needed for each day, an ever changing menu, simplistic, flavorful, thoughtful... yet maybe not with that same (forgive me for actually describing something like this) "hippie-vibe".  Mix that with the Naked Cafe in Solana Beach, and you have the complete Foreign Noodle vibe. In that way I could do it as a (retirement?) project for myself.  The Foreign Noodle is not a place to go when having a fancy business meeting necessarily (though it could be), or a place that I would be willing to sell out for in order to get more business. Rather, it comes from a love of food, of cooking, and of the love of sharing it with people.  It is a creation, and more a piece of art in my mind that someday may or may not come to life. 
Over the years, I have made recipes and menus for "some day", cultivating the thought and dream for myself.  I am not sure if The Foreign Noodle would do well in Pittsburgh (though this may be my own bias shining through), though Lawrenceville is up-and-coming enough to make it a possibility.  It is definitely more of a California dream, in which I can use fresh, local produce to make home-y, filling, and tasty food. I can never decide if I would serve meat at The Foreign Noodle either.  While the restaurant would probably do better if I did, I have never cooked meat in my life, with the exception of once making an attempt at fried chicken in a past relationship. I am not sure that I would trust myself in learning. Thus, I return to thoughts of a time when I no longer have to work and have the money and time to attend culinary school and learn these sorts of things. 
Maybe someday....

Bliss: A Get Away Weekend and New Favorite

Kevin and I decided to take a weekend and run away from jobs, chores, phones, and everything else last weekend.  We ran to Bedford Springs Resort, where I completely fell in love with the good life.  I got a huge kick out of asking for random things to be sent to our room, including champagne flutes and robes.  We went on a long hike Saturday morning, and spent the rest of our time napping, playing checkers by the fire, and sitting by (or in) the gorgeous pool they have (see below).

I had done my research and found a farm-to-table restaurant that I was excited to try out for dinner. I had reason to be excited.  Horn O Plenty is my new favorite restaurant, at least on the East coast. 

It was a BYOB, so Kevin and I took a bottle of wine and walked in to what looked like a two-story log cabin. We were told we could sit anywhere, so we cosied up in a booth near the large stone fireplace.  The restaurant is one open room, and has a somewhat rustic, natural feel to it.  All the tables and chairs were simple wood, there was the stone fireplace and a stone wall, and large wooden beams overhead.  The menus, which change daily according to the produce season and what is available from local farms, are on tablets, which we were able to scroll through and look at every mouth-watering dish.  While it is definitely a slow-kitchen, I enjoyed the wait before our food arrived.  I watched who we were later told was the owner cook our food in the kitchen, made to order.  A man and 2 boys came in, their arms filled with boxes of fresh eggs and dropped them off in the kitchen. It was all so pleasant and cozy, so I ordered a vegan Black Bean and Pumpkin Stew, and a Grilled Cheese.

The cheese was made at a local dairy, and was the perfect melty-ness, and the stew, with chunks of pumpkin was incredibly flavorful. So.Good.  Kevin ordered a burger, beef from a local farm, with beets and feta, and homemade mustard. He said it was fantastic.  He also went to their salad bar, which, while small, boasts an array of warm dishes in addition to the fresh veggies and greens.  He filled his plate with dark molasses baked beans, dill potato salad, a root vegetable concoction that was delicious (and which I helped him eat), and more.  It was delicious.  Kevin and I left feeling full but not gluttonous, and went back to the hotel to take a nap. 
The next morning, we decided to go back for Sunday brunch.  I have never in my life had polenta taste like it did in my Polenta and Poached Egg with Kale Pesto.

It was so creamy, and the kale pesto was amazing, adding just the right kick to my tastebuds. So much so that I forgot to take a picture until it was gone.  Kevin ordered a Cornbread Stack, which was homemade cornbread stacked with cheese, eggs, and either bacon or sausage. He asked if they would be willing to put a side of the baked beans he'd had the day before on there too, and was told yes, and that the owner liked the idea so much, she was going to start doing it regularly.

We left the restaurant again, full and feeling good about the meal, helping a restaurant such as this one survive, and yearning to open our own. 
Eating at places like Horn O Plenty makes me want my own restaurant. It makes me feel like I could actually do it. Who knows? Maybe someday The Foreign Noodle will happen.  Until then, I'll just keep collecting recipes and enjoying food.