Staple-less

Trader Joe's is out of steamed lentils for three straight weeks!!!  It's my standby dinner staple and I'm having trouble living without it.

I get in ruts with my eating.  I've eaten the same breakfast for years (smoothie) and for years before that, it was an English muffin and veggie breakfast sausage.  

Dinner is less of a rut, but my standby meal is lentils and pita chips.  

My husband asked me if I could just steam my own.  I told him no, so please don't let anyone burst that bubble.
One of my friends gave me a recipe a few years ago that I'm addicted to.  Steamed lentils (cold), feta, raisins, red onion, lemon juice, olive oil, pepper.  Mix and eat with a spoon and/or pita chips.  I'm addicted. 
And I might be going into withdrawal soon.  I've emailed the store.  Let's hope they respond.  Or more importantly, let's hope they fix the issue! 

Inconsistency

I am disturbed by this.  But impressed by this.


I know they do all kinds of stuff to our food, but this apple was huge.

I tried to place some everyday items (including a business card) by it, so you'll get an idea of the scale.

Also, I think I have fingers that would rank as a 6 on the length scale if 5 is average for a woman of my height (and 10 on that scale is Edward Scissorhands style). 

Also, older picture, but since I work from home on Fridays, I usually eat a baked potato for lunch.  One of my favorite foods and I always tell my husband to buy the biggest one he can find.  I actually put on the shopping list that I want a baking potato "bigger than my face." 

That was me trying to show him that this was very close, but still actually slightly smaller than my face. 

I think in the end, I'm not vehemently opposed to unnaturally large produce. 

Prepared Foods

No substance to this post, but it's on my mind.  I read something once to the effect "you know you've made it when you don't have to think twice about adding guac, despite the extra charge."  Along the themes of living large, I've come to realize that sometimes buying prepared foods kicks butt. 


I'm coming up with a rough order of preference for prepared foods.


1.  Diced onions
2.  Sliced mango
3.  Diced butternut squash


I don't count "triple washed" salad greens as being prepared, since I don't trust the washing.  But all that dicing and slicing listed above, huge help.  Onions make me cry.  Mangos are slippery $hits.  Butternut squash is just rock solid, hard to peel, and hard to dice. 


I'm lucky that our division of labor means I only have to make a grocery list and then my husband does the shopping, but it means that I don't even really know what else is available in terms of short-cut prepared foods. 


What else should I add to the list that's a big time-saver?

Airport Luck

I don't spend much time in NYC.  I went there (theRe, I should say, keyboard fixed!) for a week long vacation once in college before I studied abroad and got to do things like go up the Statue of Liberty.  And in college, we did day trips every year in December to go Christmas shopping.  And I was in New York for just over a week the year I ran the NYC marathon, but the weekend before the race was spent upstate at a wedding and I worked when I was in the city, so not really much NYC tourist time, or much NYC airport time.  I may have also passed through when one of my brothers was playing ball for a minor league team upstate (Go Tri-City Valleycats!).  Anyway, that's a sum of my NY experience. 

In the last five years, I don't think I've been there at all until recently.

As much as Laguardia sucks as an airport, it might be my new favorite solely because of this: 

 

Hopefully those pictures are clear enough.  This was in the USAirways terminal I think. 

 

First, there was a salad bar.  A legit, delicious salad bar.  With beets!!!  That should give you some idea of the selection.  And it all looked fresh and good.  That to me is the perfect travel food.  Next time I'm there, I'm totally making a salad on my way out of the airport, so I get to double up! 

 

Next, there was this grocery-store style wall.  Sushi, yogurts, juices, some prepared foods, and all seemed fairly normally priced and looked like things I'd gladly eat.

 

I wish more airports had stuff like this.  Philly has a salad place right near my usual gate, but it's one where they build the salad for you.  I like it when I get to load it up in exactly the proportions I want.  And I love having all these other choices.

 

Makes me wish I went through Laguardia on all trips.  Anyway, lots of work travel fun lately.

In Another's Home

One fun thing about staying in someone else's house is seeing what strikes you as odd or unique or noteworthy.  I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but here are the things I noticed at my friend in DC's house.

First, TWO blenders.  Both functional.  Because sometimes you need two? 

And TWO remotes.  Not unsual of course, but when you're staying with someone and she goes to work and you're home alone, enough of a mystery to require photos and texts to figure out how to operate it all. 

But most notable was the books.  Hopefully you can zoom in on these photos.  100% fitness, diet, exercise, and/or self-help books.

More cookbooks:

More cookbooks: 

More cookbooks:

And yeah, more cookbooks, since 5,525 other titles isn't sufficient: 

 

Haha, but for this friend, it makes perfect sense.  She's super-healthy, she cooks a ton, and she's great at it.  She's a friend from law school, but it wouldn't surprise me if she ended up as a dietician or nutrition coach or something similar one day. 

 

I wonder what people would find notable about our home.  I should have photographed my best friend's house in Charlottesville.  Thousands of shot glasses in her collection! 

Hairy Lunch

Weird set of circumstances today, but our assistant ended up having to bring food to me, my boss and one of my colleagues today.  My boss emailed her what he wanted her to pick up for him.  My coworker said she had a sandwich in the fridge and a cup of soup that needed to be microwaved.  I asked her to heat up my usual -- a frozen meal with an added individual serving of (frozen peas). 

Food came in batches.  First she brought my boss's carry-out.  Then my co-worker's sandwich, then the soup.  Then my meal. 

It looked exactly like it does when I make it -- a straight up frozen meal, topped with peas. 

I should remind you that I have detailed my distaste for my assistant in the past.  I don't want to link to the post, but suffice it to say, she's not my favorite.  Her competence has improved in the last few years, but she still skeeves me out a little (flashback to some TMI stories she shared with me, verbal diarrhea about actual diarrhea, blech!). 

So I started eating my lunch.  After about 3 or 4 perfectly normal bites, I realized there was a hair in my food.  A relatively long hair.  I tried to inconspicuously spit the bite into my napkin, and in doing so .... ewwww ... I realized it was my own hair.  And ... ewww ... it was still attached to my head.  Yuck! 

It totally grossed me out -- the thought that it was hers, then the realization that even though it's mine, it's still hair in my mouth that was mixed with food.  It took a lot of self-control to not shudder or freak out and try to pull all my hairs away from my face or make some other kind of scene. 

Easter treats

More than a week late now, but I had pictures on my phone that I took with the sole intent of posting here!

Easter morning, we went to my church.  I am Episcopalian, my husband is Catholic.  Since the outset of our relationship, the deal has been Christmas and Easter at my church, any other services at his.  And since my husband used to work Sundays, it really just meant Christmas at my (parents') church.  But since he changed jobs while we were in India, now he's off Sundays, so I got to bring him with me. 

After church, we came home to cook a bit -- our job was bringing salad and an appetizer, and then I also made Hot Cross Buns, an Easter morning tradition I grew up with, and a carrots-and-dirt type dessert.  Then we packed all that up and went to spend Easter with my godson and his family. 

By way of background, hubby and I rarely cook together, but we've undertaken Easter treats for the last couple years.  Unfortunately I don't have 2013 pictures, but at least I wrote about it (here), and 2014 had pictures, here. 

Anyway, here we go.  Pictures of some of the goodies we enjoyed on Easter.

Best of all was this nut-free carrot cake that my godson's dad made.  He's an amazing baker and I joked with my husband that this cake was the stuff of fantasies, and that he too would begin dreaming of this guy bringing him cake.  Haha, it really is good though! 

This is the carrots-and-dirt dessert we made.  Pudding on the bottom, then oreos, then frosting with edible grass. 

These are the Hot Cross Buns we made.  Not as good as I remember, but still good:

This is what the carrots and dirt were supposed to look like:

This was a dessert idea we considered and rejected (Easter 2016?):

And this just made me laugh: 

 

So happy (belated) Easter! 

You know you're in Wisconsin when (part 2)...

Your momma makes dessert for you every single night.  I wish I had been taking more pictures.  The first night home, it was a chocolate torte.  This night was panna cotta.  Another night was bread pudding.  Another night was Christmas cookies (well, that was Christmas Eve). 

She's so good to me. Since none of my brothers are up north for Christmas, all our dinners have been awesome vegetarian things. One night was an eggplant arborio casserole, one night was a spinach chickpea curry (vegan!), one night was mushroom gratin over polenta, one night was Moroccan carrot soup (vegan!), one night was a spaghetti casserole, one night was curried tofu with peas (vegan!). 

The sad thing about the panna cotta dessert though was that we ate it all. That I guess is the downside to individual portions of dessert.   She made 4, we ate 4, no leftovers for lunch dessert the next day. Thankfully, there was still chocolate torte...

Hope you had a lovely Christmas (if you celebrate).  Happy, warm, full belly, healthy, heart full of love, surrounded by your favorites. 

Baking done

I know it's been quiet around here lately but as is the case for pretty much all of us, there's just so much to do this time of year! 

I'm not complaining because as always, no one is making me do anything, but wow, it's a lot.  Having a late Thanksgiving this year, and then going out of town for a marathon the following weekend (did I mention that?, yeah, marathon about 8 days ago, not a PR attempt, just 4.25 painful hours of an otherwise fun girls' weekend), then one weekend in town, and now just a few more days before I fly home -- it all adds up to mean that all the usual holiday stuff is not unfolding seamlessly.  Oh, and I have to add on work chaos since we're understaffed right now and the work is really being piled on.

So here's the general holiday status:

Decorating -- 100% done!

Cards -- 60% done.  Have mailed/delivered about half of them, and made a list and set aside photos for the other 50%.  Just have to write, address and mail all of those. 

Baking -- 100% done!  Baked with my neighbor all day Saturday this past weekend and we made 8 different kinds of cookies.  I made cookie plates for 3 holiday parties (1 for me, 1 for hubby, 1 joint), for several co-workers, for another neighbor, and for a bunch of friends. 

Shopping -- 65% done.  TGFAP (Thank Goodness for Amazon Prime).  Guess I know what I'm doing Wednesday night after the social run...  Unfortunately, I still need ideas for a couple people, but I've at least made progress on most of my family.  I need to sit down and make a big list of what I've got for each person, what else is needed and where/when/how I plan on getting what else is needed. 

Wrapping -- 0% done.  Maybe tonight?  It's perhaps my least favorite of these holiday to-dos.  Maybe this year I'll cheat and do gift bags?  But honestly, I love the way pretty wrapped presents look.  Almost all the gifts for my family are being sent to Wisconsin, so I don't have to lug them with me when I go, but that means that I'm going to be stuck spending lots of time wrapping over this coming weekend when I get there. 

Shipping -- 0% done.  I only mail gifts to two of my best friends, my stepson, and one of my brothers.  And I'm done with the shopping for all of them.  But back to that 0% on the wrapping...

So despite that massive list hanging over my head, I managed to have a thoroughly fun weekend featuring a 5k, marathon spectating, and the aforementioned baking.  Plus I went to my Chinese class, Sara's post-marathon and birthday dinner, and all kinds of other good stuff.

I spent the entire 5k warm-up holding this little guy.  I'm not usually big on babies, especially not for more than the initial 5 or so minutes of seeing them, but he was so quiet and alert and non-drooling and non-smelly and smiley and non-hair-pulling that I couldn't resist holding him for the better part of an hour.  He loved watching everything around us. 

And here are the cookie photos, the results of an entire day of baking! 

I also took about 100 pictures at our local marathon on Sunday.  My husband and I walked to a place along the route and watched the parade -- from runner 1 (a half marathoner who we almost thought had cheated by starting early because he was so far out front), to the lead marathon pack, to Sara Hall (who was being paced by Ryan Hall and who was going for an American half-marathon record), to my first friend (not far behind the elites, he was running on the co-ed relay team that won the race, so they were all flying), to my training buddies, to other friends, to pretty much the very end (the people who appeared to be 100% walking).  Then I drove to go see them all again.  I parked near mile 21 and missed the 3:05 pace group, but I was there several minutes before the 3:15 pace group, so I didn't miss many people I knew.  I ran a bit with several friends.  Unfortunately, I was right at the beginning of the suckiest uphill in the entire course, so people seemed kind of disheartened, especially since it was a humid day in the low 60s, so far from ideal weather.  It was fun to see the people who were still trucking along and it was fun to encourage those who seemed to be struggling.

One of my biggest race pet peeves I noticed during my marathon last week -- so many people who came out to cheer who were just standing there, watching and quietly waiting for their family member or friend to come by.  So I vowed not to be like that -- I would cheer and make noise constantly, not just when I saw a friend.  One of my friends said he heard me a mile away!  I hope he was joking, but I will admit that people definitely heard me because many times, I missed a friend's face in the crowd, only to hear that runner call out to me and wave, having seen me and recognized my voice.  It was so much fun!  But part of me understands why so many stand quietly -- it was a lot of work!  Trying to come up with things to yell, and then yelling the same thing again and again and again and again and again and again... 

My faves for my first watch point (mile 7):  Looking strong!  Nice job!  Keep it up!  Doing great!  Way to go!  Less than 20 more miles!  You're doing it! 

My faves for my second watch point (mile 20-21):  Keep it steady!  Keep going!  Keep your head in the game!  Last hill!  Looking strong!  Nice job!  Hold on!  You've got this!  Run, run, run! 

Anyway, a friend I ran with several years ago met up with me and we headed backwards on the course to look for his wife.  Eventually, I wound my way back to one of the beer stops right at mile marker 20, and I waited to find Sara, who was running her first marathon ever. 

Thankfully, I was watching and cheering instead of looking at the clock or the pace groups.  She came through way ahead of schedule.  By then, it was raining steadily, and I jumped in to run with her for a couple miles.  I assumed that would be the best place to meet her since it seems like that's where I (and pretty much 95% of other marathoners) struggle the most.  But she was ticking along, kicking butt!  She was in a great place mentally and running strong.  Within a few minutes, the sky seemed to really open up on us, and it poured.  After dodging some puddles, we eventually had to ford a small river across Abrams -- there was no avoiding it and our shoes got completely soaked.  But at that point, she was already nearly at mile 22 and 5 miles in soaking shoes isn't the end of the world, so she just powered through.  I'll leave it to her to tell her own race story on her blog, but it was one of the highlights of my weekend to get to join her for a bit. 

Not Running in NM

So I have come to the conclusion that I don't really run in New Mexico.  I basically jog, stop for photos, jog, then take more photos. 

Seriously, what is it about this place? 

I run with my phone when commuting to/from work in Dallas, but pretty much never for any other local run.  Occasionally, I'll run with my phone in other cities if I'm worried about getting lost.  I have never in my life run with my phone with a plan of taking photos.

But yesterday morning, it was similar to my last NM run -- sunrise behind me that was so spectacular, I had to keep looking back about every 45 seconds, and then stopping about every 2 minutes to take another photo.

I don't know why I bother -- my iphone photos don't do it justice, but I just want to sear it into my memory I guess.

Yesterday morning in Las Cruces:

(Honestly, I took this so I'd also remember that about 75% of the residences I ran past were either RVs or trailer homes, but the sky was pretty too:)

And then after the run, yes, biscuits and gravy (only 2 on this plate):

Where I worked (and it went well, just made for a very long day):

 

For dinner, I met up with a former co-worker at Chope's, which used to be my favorite restaurant in the Las Cruces area.  Last night, my chile relleno wasn't quite as good as I remembered, but the company was wonderful and we had lots of fun catching up:

 

Today's plan is to head back to Dallas!  Done with work travel for the year now -- two trips for fun on the books, but nothing more for work! 

Hotel Breakfast

I am in lovely New Mexico again for work.  I'm about to attempt to recreate the most beautiful run of my life this morning, but somehow, I don't think it will be the same, that really was a special day.  I just have to wait for it to be a little bit lighter out since I'm running alone in somewhere pretty unfamiliar and kind of rural (I could run toward the city, but it's much prettier the other direction). 

I find myself travelling to many of the same cities for work.  I'm most often in Philly (or the surrounding area), second most often is New Mexico.  Then it's probably Missoula, Denver and Indy in the running for the next most frequent destinations. 

And between my two most frequent destinations, I have completely opposite but equally appealing breakfast options.

I actually have two hotels I use in Philly -- one in Center City (federal court and Philadelphia County), one in the burbs for when I'm in non-Philadelphia county court.  And I have one hotel I use in New Mexico.

In Philly suburbs, there is no room service, which blows.  I love getting breakfast in my room so that I can eat and drink while I'm getting dressed, watching the news, packing up, etc.  In Philly Center City, I have a great breakfast that I order from room service -- double oatmeal with a side of berries.  Anyway, in the Philly suburbs, I usually eat in the lobby and I often have defense counsel meet me there for breakfast so we can go over the plan and so I don't get lost going where we need to go. 

Well, anyway, in the Philly suburbs, I learned in November that they can actually modify something on the breakfast menu to give me almost exactly what I eat for breakfast at home.

At home, I am in the "green smoothie" routine and I have been for a very long time.  I make mine with spinach (usually kale too, but not always), frozen fruit (I use a medley of strawberries, peaches, mango, pineapple and grapes), frozen beets (they make the color so pretty, and I looooove beets), carrot juice, and soy milk.  Then I add in protein powder if I worked out, chia seeds, and ground flaxseed.  And if I'm super-hungry for some reason, I also have veggie breakfast sausage, but that's only once every couple weeks. 

In the Philly suburbs, they have a strawberry smoothie on the menu, but they also have a spinach omelette.  So last month, I asked if they could put spinach in the strawberry smoothie.  They did!  I was so happy.  It wasn't exactly the same, but close.  They use yogurt, but I wasn't going to complain.  Spinach and strawberries in liquid form was close to perfect for me.  I've already decided that next time I'm there (probably not until January!), I'm going to have a ziplock bag with protein powder, chia seeds and flaxseed, and I'm going to ask them to add that in, and to use soy milk instead of yogurt.  Slow tweeks and eventually, it will be like I'm not even travelling (except my running buddies aren't there). 

But here in New Mexico, it's the complete opposite of my healthy home breakfast.  They have a breakfast buffet with biscuits and gravy.  Vegetarian gravy.  Not even close to the delicious veg gravy that Amy tipped me off to find at Gravy in Portland, but that basic white chunky unhealthy looking gravy that you find at breakfast buffets in the south. 

I don't know why I love it.  I didn't grow up with biscuits and gravy.  We had cream chipped beef on toast on special occasions (my mom's family way, way, way back is British, and I guess that recipe stayed in the family), which is similar I guess.  But for some reason in 2012 maybe (2013?) at this hotel in New Mexico, I asked if it was vegetarian and then tried it.  And ever since I've been hooked. 

After my beautiful run in New Mexico last time, I had two biscuits with gravy that I ate in my room, then I went downstairs to the buffet to meet defense counsel and I had two more!  Seriously, no self control when it comes to them.  Thank goodness they're not anywhere close to Dallas!  But remember, the day of 4 biscuits was a much longer run than it was supposed to be, so I have a partial excuse... 

Today, I'm assuming that I'm going to stick to my run schedule (no extra miles this week, marathon on Sunday!, which is why I can wait a bit longer for it to be light), so I'm going to have to hold myself to a three biscuit maximum.  But honestly, the odds aren't good, especially since I have ZERO future trips to New Mexico on the schedule...

Okay, off to run!  Then biscuits, then mediating my biggest active case...

Tree

Well, I can't say much for UPS in keeping the shipping status current, but no sooner did I fret that our new tree hadn't moved from Buffalo where it was stuck in the storm, than the status was changed to delivered!  So we have a tree after all.  That's a big relief to me since I won't be home with my folks until Dec. 19, and since I probably won't see snow in Dallas before then, having our tree up and decorated is really the main way for me to get into the holiday spirit. 

Thanksgiving was lovely.  Our local Turkey Trot is 8 miles and it's my longest streak race -- this was year number 11 in a row.  Not a PR, but not bad.  I ran about 20 seconds per mile faster than the plan, but the weather was nice and I was running with a friend, so it was great.  And the race itself was a grateful experience -- running in general, Dallas having awesome running weather for a fair amount of the year, a great running community (it's one of the largest trots in the country, something like 35,000 people, counting the 5k), and perhaps most of all, my running friends.  For the first year since my husband and I have been together, we didn't meet up with my buddies before the race.  We just went to the start, but within minutes of getting into the corral, we were with friends.  First, I ran into a guy I ran with about 4 years ago, then one of my original best boot camp buddies (who had actually just gotten off night shift, was going to run the race, then going home to sleep from 11 until 5, then working that night), then more and more friends I love that I've met through running.  The race was more of the same.  Running with one of my buddies, but running into friends along the way, former coworkers, neighbors, everything, so much fun to share some miles (or fractions thereof, as the case may be) with them.  It was a new course this year that didn't highlight the prettiest parts of the city, but the streets were full, there were plenty of costumes, it made me get all teary right in the middle of the race -- I was overwhelmed with a feeling of gratefulness and joy.  I'm a lucky girl and I know it. 

I've said it before, and in some ways it scares me -- I feel like life is so good it's just a matter of time before some shoe drops.  I suppose that's true actually, there is going to be a bump in the road.  It's hard to guess what it will be.  But I have to just enjoy this ride while it lasts.  Healthy, so in love, about to go visit my family next month, surrounded by friends who mean so much to me, a job I love, an amazing year wrapping up, all the material comforts I want, getting to see the world.  It just doesn't seem like it could get any better. 

After the trot, we came home to cook.  Our Thanksgiving contributions were mashed potatoes, olives and pickles, canned cranberry sauce, acorn squash halves filled with peas, rolls, and a dessert -- cranberry squares.  We had our big meal at my friend and her husband's house (he is my ex-boss).  One of his sons was there as well (just turned 16).  They made turkey (she's a vegetarian too, but neither of our husbands are), gravy, stuffing (in the bird and separate veggie stuffing for us), green bean casserole, glazed carrots, homemade cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. 

The food was all amazing.  The downside to having been back from vacation for nearly a month is that our stomachs have returned to normal size and I wasn't able to eat nearly as much as I wanted.  I basically had a single plate full -- but it was very full.  And then two desserts.  We'd also had big bowls of greek yogurt with granola and blueberries after the race (plus a granola bar before and an orange in the car on the way home).  But then we had the big meal at about 3 and didn't eat again.  I was still full when we went to bed! 

In retrospect, it was funny because they really wanted to see our pictures from India and Nepal and Dubai so after we ate, we plugged the laptop into their tv and they looked at the pictures.  And they were both falling asleep.  It was like torture I bet -- here, look at 1,500 photos of India with an uncomfortably full belly and try to stay awake.  For us, it was kind of fun because it was the first time we'd really looked at the photos other than to pick out our Christmas card enclosure photos.  But they asked for it!  So we spent post-dinner looking at photos, sitting around talking, and then cleaning up the kitchen and packing up leftovers. 

Then Friday was spent primarily putting up the tree, and trimming it while listening to Christmas music.  Unfortunately for my husband, when we listen to our Christmas mix CDs, then it gets to be time to put on New Kids on the Block Christmas CD.  Oh, he hates it as much as I love it! 

I know CDs are so retro, but Christmas seems to be the only time I listen to them instead of digital music.

Anyway, as to the tree, I'm so glad we got it done.  We also ate two huge plates of leftovers, one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving.  I think we each have enough for about 2-3 more plates, then it will all be gone. 

Our new tree was 6 inches taller than our old one, and I think we could have gone up another 6 inches, but it seems to fit pretty well.  Sorry for the iphone pic, but here it is: 

 

The plan for the rest of the weekend is to go for my "last" "long" run in a little while, write out our cards (at least half of which I've already addressed!) today, come up with a baking list for cookies, see a movie (hubby wants to see Foxcatcher) and get organized -- put away decoration remnants and pick up in general.   Then tomorrow will be a shorter run, breakfast with some friends, some online shopping, Chinese class, and packing -- flying out for work on Monday! So much better than having to travel on Sunday and having it cut into my weekend.

 

Europe Recap: Venetian Food

Continuing tradition, while we are on vacation this year, I'm sharing some photos and details from last year's trip. Last year, you got to see China while we were in Europe. This year, you get to see Europe while we are in India! 

Since it was toward the end of our trip and our stomachs had been sufficiently stretched by my husband's family in Lamezia, we ate a TON of food in Venice.  Sadly, much of it was not very impressive, but we have fairly high standards for Italian food (did you see my earlier post about how we ate in Lamezia?). 

My husband's favorite meal is pizza, fries, beer and gelato -- actually what we had for our rehearsal dinner in Pizzo, and now what we have every year at our annual rehearsal dinner celebration dinner party, where we invite all our Dallas friends who came to Italy for our wedding. 

Anyway, his favorite meal was our first dinner in Venice, and probably one of the best meals we had there: 

For dessert, cheeeeeese!!!

We also had pizza and fries as a meal one day near the Grand Canal, by far one of the worst meals I've had in Italy in my entire life.  And pricey (for pizza) to boot.  Bah to tourists! 

Having spent about a week with my husband's family, we were thorougly in the habit of having full meals every day.  That means a pasta dish, a secondo, and a salad.  So we definitely ran up some expensive meals in Venice, I think many tourists don't eat a full Italian style meal, so in addition to being expensive, it was also a lot of food.  Good thing our stomachs were already stretched and perhaps at peak capacity in my entire life! 

For this meal, I went with gnocchi in a cheese-cream sauce (see why I gained weight??!!): 

Salads (sorry the pics are out of order):

And my secondo was a plate of grilled vegetables, with polenta as a contorno:

 

And of course there was a little stroll and then some gelato...

Europe Recap: Lamezia Terme eats

Continuing tradition, while we are on vacation this year, I'm sharing some photos and details from last year's trip. Last year, you got to see China while we were in Europe. This year, you get to see Europe while we are in India! 

This is probably my favorite recap post to write, and also the hardest.  Looking at all this food makes me want to get back there as quickly as possible and never leave.

When we're in Italy visiting my husband's family, we pretty much never eat out.  We try to do it occasionally, but we usually get in trouble.  They yell at us and say we should have eaten at home.  We usually have most of our meals with my husband's aunt, uncle and adult cousin, who live in the house where we stay.  But we also usually have at least one dinner with each of two other cousins, plus their families, and one dinner with our best friends there. 

This was lunch on the day we arrived, simple, delicious: 

This was the secondo, some kind of baked eggplant dish that they made especially for me, but somehow they missed the fact that including pork meant that it actually isn't vegetarian and not something I'd ordinarily eat.  I tried to kind of pick around the meat, the eggplant part was delicious!

A very basic dinner (lunch is the main meal), greens with potatoes as a primo, and various meat cutlets as a secondo (which I skipped), plus bread, cheese, olives, and then fruit for dessert:

Another pasta dish one day:

Hubby's aunt and one of his cousin's daughters with roasted meat and potatoes for secondo/contorno one day:

Hubby would probably say this was one of his favorites -- tuna and tomatoes, which he eats all the time at home, but I don't think it's quite the same as it is in Italy.  As an aside, I HATE raw tomatoes.  If they are really chopped up like in a salsa, I will eat them occasionally, but I don't like pico de gallo, or anything else with tomato chunks.  On our first trip to Italy, he convinced me to try a tomato there.  It was so horrible!  It tasted EVEN MORE like a tomato than what I'd had in the US -- at least in the US, sometimes they're somewhat flavorless.  In Italy, very tomatoey. 

I loved this preserved eggplant, peppers and artichokes:

Which I ate with bread and cheese:

So much cheese!

We went out for breakfast on our own one day, on the main street in town: 

A pasta carbonara type lunch one day:

For me and my husband's aunt, a totally vegetarian primo! 

Followed by all kinds of stuff:

More bread, peppers, eggplant for me:

Husband's cousin cutting a melon up for dessert:

Our typical breakfast at home, bread, jam (Nutella for my husband), coffee, and sometimes cereal. 

One day we headed up toward Platania with my husband's cousin to go pick mushrooms.  Despite him showing us what kind we wanted, I basically had no luck.  I found tons of others.  I think we were looking for chantarelles?  It's funny because I cook with them sometimes at home and my husband complains because he spends about $20 on them for a single recipe.  Ever since this mushroom hunting experience, I remind him how many hours of work go into finding just one! 

Hours of work with this yield:

Stopping for bread (his family usually bakes their own, but there was something in particular that we were getting here):

A restaurant meal!  We were actually in Pizzo for the day, so we went for pizza (and fries and beer and salad and gelato...): 

The salad was a little bland:

 

Among the people we visited were another uncle and aunt (who actually gave us a beautiful painting of the castle where we got married that hangs in our entryway).  With them, we drank this crazy strawberry moonshine stuff:

Oh my it was potent!  But very good:

Dinner at another cousin's house, who completely and 100% understood what I meant in saying that I didn't eat meat.  Perhaps the only non-cheese protein I had in Lamezia?

Some kind of breaded meat that husband ate:

Dessert was a cookie assortment: