Vacation Eats: Breakfast in Italy

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!

We usually eat the same thing for breakfast at his family's house.  Some kind of bread, marmelade for me, Nutella for hubby, and coffee (Italian coffee, which means espresso).  Sometimes there are some biscotti and cereal too.  Kind of a boring meal.

Montana-bound

Another travel aside.  Just found out I'm traveling for work next week too.  And to Missoula no less...

Not exactly an easy place to fly to from Dallas.  My choices were basically to leave at 7 a.m. and arrive at 3, to leave at 8 and arrive at noon, or to leave at 6:30 or 7 at night and arrive around midnight.  Ugh. 

But since I'll be getting there around noon, I think I'm going to take the rental car and drive to Idaho.  It's one of the few remaining US states that I've never visited!  Looks like it's only a couple hours away. 

I'm not wild about traveling for work.  It didn't bother me too much before I got married, but now I get lonely.  And I also tend to eat too much crap on the road.  I miss having my go-to foods, my trainer, my running trail, etc.

The good news is that it looks like there are some great places to run in Missoula, and the weather will be maybe rainy, but at least not hot and humid.  I'm going to make a go at a 1-mile run that has 620 feet of incline, up to something called the M on Mount Sentinel. 

Vacation Eats: Dinner at the Home of Friends

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!

One night in Lamezia we went to our friends' house for dinner, and one of hubby's cousins joined us since he's also friends with them.  Our friends have two litle boys and she is pregnant now with a little girl, who will be born in late July probably.  The boys are both overweight, which I think is getting more common among Italian kids; they're both completely adorable.  The younger one (named after my husband) is described by his mother as a tsunami, but the older one is pretty well-behaved.  For a boy.  Of about 7 years of age! 

Anyway, she cooked dinner for us, which was great!

To start, we had a type of bruschetta, suppli (rice balls), and then something like a pig in a blanket and some kind of salami, both of which I pushed onto hubby's plate and I loaded up on the rice balls!

Then we had pasta with red sauce and peppers.

My secondo was potatoes with peppers, fresh mozzarella, olives, and a pepper mix. 

And fruit cocktail for dessert!

It was a lovely night with them, as always, lots of good food, so much great companionship.

Vacation Eats: Lunches at home in Lamezia

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!

While we were in Lamezia, we ate lunch at hubby's family's home (where we stayed) most days.

I was tempted to make this several separate posts so you'll get a complete picture of how much each meal was and not think the pictures include many meals, but that would take too long.  Just realize that each meal was TONS of food.  I failed to take pictures of at least one lunch at home, but these are good representative samples of what it's like to eat there.  Lunch is definitely the big meal of the day.  The kids come home from school and the guys come home from work, and everyone eats together.  Dinner is small, unorganized, and not usually anything special.  I'll add a typical dinner at home to this post too, just for reference. 

So this is what we ate for lunch on Good Friday:

Pasta with greens, made especially for me, the vegetarian!

Homemade sundried tomatoes, home-grown olives (with pits) and wine (homemade by someone they buy from).

Sundried tomatoes and bread for my secondo. 

And oh yeah, don't forget the cheese...  Lots of delicious cheese. 

Fruit for dessert.  And they're big on peeling all fruit with a knife before you eat it. 

A few homemade biscotti with espresso after lunch. 

And this is what we ate for lunch on Saturday:

First, a plate of penne with red sauce.  Sooooo good. 

Then greens mixed with beans for me, fresh tomatoes (which hubby loved) and a plate of various meats.

Hubby's plate.  Not sure what the meat was.  He loved the tomatoes and olives.

And then the bowl of fruit for dessert. 

Sorry not to know how to rotate the pic.  More cheese, and a sweet dessert in the background.

Of course coffee after lunch.

Zia getting ready to cut the torte.

Mmm, the torte was delicious, made with fresh ricotta.

All that for a single lunch!
And this is what we ate for dinner on Good Friday, after we got back from the procession through town and stations of the cross service. 

Yep, potatoes, bread and cheese.  And a clock to show how late at night it was when we ate!  Not typical, but what happens when you get home from the Good Friday church procession at about 10:15 at night...

Other dinners are posted separately (the pizza restaurant, and dinner at friends' house), but those are definitely atypical and just b/c we're visiting.  Above is a much better example of daily eats at least for the lunches. 

Easter lunch gets its own post!