Vacation Eats: Pittsburgh

This is a post in my "Vacation Eats" series.  I'm posting about various eating and drinking experiences I had on our 2011 Vacation Extravaganza -- Pittsburgh, Boston, Italy, Paris, Pittsburgh.  A link to all posts so far is available here.  The idea is to lose all the pounds I gained by the time I'm finished with this posting series! 

Because I didn't realize how much weight I'd be gaining in Pittsburgh, I failed to photograph some of the fun things we ate there.  Highlights that I can recall were pizzas (no. 1 of the vacation for me, no. 3 for hubby, who started the trip several days earlier than I did) at a restaurant in Dormont, along with vegetarian antipasto platters that were awesome.  All the food there was good, it was just the service that was poor.  I can't believe I don't even know the restaurant name to share.

After lunch, hubby's bro and his wife went to a bakery to pick up some desserts and brought them over to hubby's nephew's house where we were all hanging out for the afternoon.  Cupcakes and frosted cookies, both very good, plus a coffee cake that I didn't try but others liked. 

Dinner that night was my old stand-by at the in-laws' house:  sandwiches made of various kinds of cheese (always provolone slices from the deli, and usually one other kind) and about 4-5 marinated artichoke hearts, served on sourdough bread.  The in-laws always have a big Costco sized jar of marinated artichoke hearts, and they always have bread and cheese, so that's my standard make-my-own meal there, which is nice b/c my mother-in-law seems particularly perplexed about what to do with a vegetarian.  We now keep the same kind of big jar of artichoke hearts at home, and I go through phases where I eat them a lot (phase probably starting again now, since it's getting warm), but it's never quite the same as at their house.  We don't keep bread at home usually, just pita bread, sandwich thins and english muffins.  And we never have deli cheese, just singles of American and pepper jack, and sometimes feta or blue crumbled cheese.  But even if we buy that stuff, it's not the same. 

This is a lame first post for the Vacation Eats series.  Sorry.  I promise the others get significantly better!