Food

I am going to really need a diet when I get back to the states. Italy really did me in. Moderation is just not possible in the land of fabulous food. Simona my friends' father took us out to dinner several times while we were on vacation. Yummy, Yummy, Yummy is all I can say. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of this fabulous food I ate, but I will torture you with a description of at least one of the meals. So, we went to this restaurant in Procchio the little town we were staying in. The first course I ate was a Salad Mista which is a green salad and varies from place to place in Italy, but here it always came with tomatoes and corn with a dash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The second course was a creamy pesto with finely diced ham, and a touch of red pepper not to hot just right. The last course was flank steak grilled to perfection just a little pink and oh so tender cut in ribbons which they call tagliatelle on a bed of arugula and shaved Parmesan cheese. Frank had a platter to start that included everything from the best salami, octopus, and shrimp that was laid in a counter clock wise direction around a very fine diced tomatoes salsa, but thicker than American salsa. He finished with Swordfish. For desert, we walked to the main promenade and had crepes with Nutella and smarties from a street vendor but the combinations were endless. Another one of my favorites is a crepe filled with pastry creme. I do need to torture you with just one more meal which was really yummy called Spaghetti Vongula. Most likely, I have spelled this wrong; however, it is spaghetti with baby clams with pine nuts. OK, this might not sound good to you, but you should give it a try. Because they get all their seafood fresh it does not taste fishy. The clams were small and actually sweet. Beside the daily pizza for lunch that was cooked in a wood fire oven, on top of that add a scoop of gelato (I think I tasted every flavor) now you can see why I am in trouble.
On the way home we committed a mortal sin by stopping at McDonald's. When I told my husband this my son replied, "why it is not Sunday." They were happy and even more happy with the toy that played It's a Barbie World by Aqua. We finally had to take them away in fear that we might just kill them if we heard the song one more time.