Growing up as a vegetarian surrounded by meat eaters, the cooks in my life would often make "meaty" meatless dishes. My mother, bless her heart, would often make 2 versions of dinner: one with meat for everyone else, and another one for me - and eventually my little sister as well, who also became a plant-based eater at a young age. For instance, I remember this spaghetti pie she would make that had crumbled beef in it, but for us, she made a mini spaghetti pie using meatless crumbles instead. It's kind of a weird dish to describe, but I used to love it. My grandma's go-to "meaty" dish for me was eggplant parmigiana. In typical fashion for her drastic personality - a trait that everyone knew her for - she knew that I liked it, so she proceeded to make eggplant parm just about every week ... [Read More]
Italian food
Fontina, Artichoke & Roma Tomato Calzone
Sometimes I hear about a recipe or see a picture of a meal, and I just know that I need to make it myself in the near future. I feel as though there's a section in my brain solely dedicated to keeping a constant list of recipes to create and grub to try. This is how I felt when I was recently reading Brittany's blog and she was talking about different meal delivery services that she had given a try. With one of the services, she had eaten an artichoke and fontina calzone for dinner one night. As soon as I heard mention of fontina cheese paired with artichokes, rolled in pizza dough to make the classic Italian fare, I knew that I would be creating a recipe for it myself very soon. And so here I was last weekend, with all of the ingredients to whip up a calzone recipe....and excited to ... [Read More]
One of My favorite SoCal Italian Eateries: Hillcrest’s Arrivederci Ristorante
When I was in San Diego last week, I made sure to hit a few of my top restaurants in the area. We had a lot of social plans so that we could see all of our friends in town, but one night Adam and I had a cozy dinner date just the two of us at our favorite little Italian restaurant in the city -- Arrivederci Ristorante. It's the kind of Italian eatery where the man who answers the phone when you call to make reservations says things like, "bellissimo" and "ciao bella." It's an old school, authentic kind of place... one where their website is always displaying internal errors, which probably doesn't bother them much because their food speaks for itself. It's a restaurant located in a quaint space that's constantly bustling with happy diners, their bellies full of pasta and ... [Read More]
Italian-Style Stuffed Peppers
To a lot of people, including me, food is more than just what you eat to keep your body nourished. It's also an aspect of life that brings people together, brings them joy and creates long-lasting memories. Some eats bring me back to certain times in my life. A meal I created the other night made me think of when my hubby and I first lived together. Our first months of living together, we were temporarily located in Florida while my Marine went to a specialty school there. I remember having fun creating our first dinners as a married couple, and one of my first meals for us in Florida was stuffed peppers. I used to stuff them with soy crumbles, veggies and cheese, so while these stuffed peppers are more inspired by Italian ingredients like bread crumbs, mozzarella, parmesan, fresh basil, ... [Read More]
Wine, Pizza, Tartufo, Oh My! My First Dinner in Venice
Sometimes in travel, just like in life in general, things just don't go fabulously. This was the case for my husband and I the day we traveled to Venice from Austria. Everything started off fine. We caught a train from one town in Austria to another, and with 15 minutes in between when the train got into the station and when the bus to Venice left, we figured out where the bus was and made it with a couple minutes to spare. The not so great part of the day started when we got off the bus and had to figure out where the ferry was that could take us to the Lido of Venice where we were staying. After walking around confused for awhile, we found the ferry area but could only find ticket window drive-thrus. My husband went to ask the kiosk man where we could buy tickets, and the man ... [Read More]
Tigelleria Organic Italian Restaurant in Campbell, San Jose
When I move to a new area, it takes me awhile to find favorite places and spaces around. So when my family visited me in my new Bay Area home last week, I had a mix of new places for us to try that I'd only heard of, with a couple of new things I'd already experienced and loved thrown in there. One of the restaurants I had lined up for us to dine at one night was Tigelleria Organic Restaurant, a small Italian eatery in the Campbell area. I first ate there with my friend Tiffany a few months ago. We both enjoyed our dinner experience there, so I went back with my family last Friday night. (source) The restaurant has 15 tables, so reservations are necessary (especially with a group of 6 as we had). I think I tend to gravitate towards smaller, more intimate places like this - especially ... [Read More]