August 3, 2010
Sit down.
I have something to tell you.
We’ve officially canceled our long anticipated trip to Italy this fall. That’s right. Our frequent flyer miles have been plunked back into our mileage plus account, the rental apartments have been rented to someone else, the reservation fee for the Florence Market day with Divina Cucina (sad face) has been refunded, and the wall map of Italy and accompanying countdown calendar hanging on our living room wall now reside in a tear-stained cardboard box in our garage.
I know. It’s okay to cry. Don’t hold it in. I’ll give you as much time as you need to collect yourself before I continue.
There. Do you feel better now? If it’s okay with you I’ll continue but please, if it becomes too much, stop me at any point because I want to be sensitive to your needs.
All humor aside, the reason we canceled our trip was that my spouse’s mom was recently diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and so making the decision to not go to Italy was both a great disappointment and a very easy decision. It simply boiled down to this; Italy will always be there but D’s mom won’t always be here and so here is the only place we want to be. Disappointed but with no regrets.
I initially purchased travel insurance because I have this recurring travel phobia of getting up in the morning to catch our international flight and having that instant awful realization that I’m in the first throws of the stomach flu. Maybe it’s just me but when I’m vomiting I want the toilet seat I’m hugging to be securely fastened to the ground rather than hurling through space. So sure, while I winced at the 800 dollar price tag for travel insurance, I never hesitated and whew….am I glad because while the airlines, independent tour operators, and travel company were all incredibly gracious and sympathetic toward our situation there were still service charges, handling fees, and other minimal costs up front that were non-refundable and added up together they made one hefty pile of cash. So follow my advice and get travel insurance because despite our best plans we just never know what life is going to toss our way.
And despite the bad news I just dropped on you (sorry about that), on the bright side we’re planning to re-schedule our month stay in Italy for September-October 2011 which gives me even more time to obsess, plan, and obsess some more. And yes, I’ll be following my own advice and purchasing travel insurance once again with the hope that we don’t have to use it.
Posted in Italy, Travel 5 Comments »
June 8, 2010
When I recently saw these lavender-lemon flower cookies presented in plant-able pots at the Half-Moon Bay farmer’s market I knew it was an idea worthy of stealing and making my own so that my friends, having seen my version on someone else’s uniquely original idea would be immediately awed by my ingenuity and creativity.
“How do you come up with such incredibly creative ideas, Anita?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They just come to me.”
Yes. I’m just needy enough that I’m willing to deceive those I love for the attention. I’m the baby of the family. What can I say?
There’s a skill in plagiarizing someone else’s idea, that being the ability to change the idea just enough that should one of your friends, having previously stumbled upon the original say to you, “Hey, I saw something just like that a couple months ago at a farmer’s market on the coast!” you will be able to simply cock your head slightly to one side and with a puzzled look on your face reply, “Oh really?! Gosh, I guess it’s true what they say that there’s really nothing new under the sun. Cookies you say? Uh. I would have never thought of that.”
So with that in mind, I now present my uniquely original creation, Anita’s FlowerPot Nibblers.
I know. Cute, huh? I tell you, I just don’t know how I come up with these ideas! Anyway, here’s all you need to make some Flowerpot Nibblers of your own. Just don’t forget to tell people where you got the idea because that would simply be rude to not give me credit!
Any kind of flower-shaped cracker, celery, garden vegetable cream cheese, cheddar cheese slices, salami rounds and plantable pots which you should be able to pick up at any nursery.
Begin by lining the inside of the pot with plastic wrap or wax paper. I would have preferred using brown parchment paper but since I used the last of the row last night for roasting vegetables, plastic wrap served the purpose howbeit less organic in appearance.
Add two or three rounds of salami.
Now put a small spoon full of the garden vegetable cream cheese in the bottom of the pot.
Toss a couple rounds of cheese into the bottom of the pot…
and place the another round into the center of the cracker, gluing it with a smidge of the cream cheese (a smidge being like a dollop only slightly smaller).
Slice up a five or seven celery sticks for each pot (it’s a number thing…I can’t do even numbers with food items).
And that’s all there is to it. Each pot makes a substantial portable snack for a picnic or backyard party that includes five or six bites of meat, three bites of cheese, a cracker, and a little cream cheese for dipping the celery in. Arrange a number of these mini snack pots on your serving table around a pot filled with real flowers, and once the snack pots are empty provide the children at your big social event with potting soil, seeds, and plastic spoons for planting.
And that is my idea!
Posted in Apron Adventures, Farmers Market/Street Food 2 Comments »
June 1, 2010
My house is littered with books about Italy.
There’s the stacked pile on my nightstand. At the moment I’m three-quarters of the way through “The Wisdom of Tuscany“, beginning chapter two of “Four Seasons in Rome,” and nibbling random little bits and pieces from my newest acquisition, “Italy, Speak the Culture: Be Fluent in Italian Life and Culture.”
There are all the lavatory library books, composed primarily of travel guides and books with really short chapters.
There are stacks of Italy-themed books spread through the rest of our house; the coffee table books on ancient Rome and the towns and villages of Tuscany; the book shelf dedicated to cookbooks highlighting the various regions of Italy along with leaning stack of La Cucina Italiana. And then there’s Strega Nona!, a children’s pop-up book illustrated by Tomie dePaola, my all-time favorite illustrator. Each vibrantly colored page is dedicated to one of the six ingredients that make life magical to the wise Strega Nona, including famiglia (family), mangia (eating), pazienza (patience), celebrazione (celebration), amore (love), and….
…amici (friends).
I heart Italy.
Posted in Italy 3 Comments »
June 1, 2010
104 days until Italy. 104 days until lemon gelato. 104 days until carciofi alla guidia (fried artichokes). 104 days until melon gelato. 104 days until pasta alla carbonara. 104 days until pistachio gelato. 104 days until a steamy mound of pasta topped with shaved white truffles. 104 days until chocolate gelato. 104 days until fresh pecorino cheese. 104 days until chilled little glasses of homemade lemoncello.
And did I mention 104 days until gelato?
That means I have 104 days to trim the little bit of soft and squishy around my waist that arrived in winter and made itself at home on my fleshy frame through spring. My goal in losing weight before Italy isn’t so I can eat until I pop, though I’m not saying that’s not possible given the newspaper headlines I read a few years ago that announced “Woman Eats 20 Pizzas and Explodes!!!” If the National Inquirer is to be believed it could happen.
But popping open like an overstuffed ravioli isn’t what I’m trying to avoid. Instead I want to get trimmed and toned so a) I’m in the best physical condition to enjoy walking through Rome, biking around Tuscany, and hiking the mountains edging along the Amalfi Coast; and b) the travel clothes I’ve already bought will be loose comfortable instead of snug sorta-comfortable when I disembark at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.
And really, despite my enthusiasm for getting to know the flavors of Italy on an intimate first-name basis, my expectation is to come home without gaining more than a couple pounds, if that. Wishful thinking, you say? A naive dreamer, you call me? Not so! I counter. Well, that is if historical evidence counts for anything since two summers ago I managed to eat my way through Greece and come home the same weight as when I left despite consuming vats of whole milk yogurt drowning in honey and walnuts, sweet coffee drinks, slabs of grilled cheese, bowls of tzatziki swimming in olive oil, souvlaki sandwiches (skewers of lamb wrapped in warm pita and stuffed with a fistful of greasy french fries)…and then on my second day in Greece….
But for the next two months gelato and pasta will be reserved for my dreams while lighter fare will be on my plate, primarily focusing on non-processed whole foods high in vegetables, fruits and lean protein. That’s typically how we eat in our home anyway but the difference is getting myself back into the habit of eating moderate portions as opposed to my mile high heap on a plate default and writing down what I eat each day in a food journal, and I can’t say this enough but keeping a food journal is a tried and true key to successful weight loss and long-term maintenance! These days I’m using NetDiary for the iPad to record my food and exercise and I’m loving it. (Click on the image to the left to see a larger image of my exciting menu for the day). Speaking of which, after a season of cold weather hibernation I’m not only cleaning up my food plan but ramping back up to my usual exercise routine; core strength training three times a week, high intensity workouts (spinning, stair-stepping) three times a week, and plenty of walking, hiking, and biking for the pure enjoyment of being alive!
Posted in Fitness and Exercise, Italy, Maintaining Weight, Weight Loss 2 Comments »
May 18, 2010
…like a hoarder to a junk yard…like Pooh to a honey pot….is Anita to Apps.
But I’m not an app addict. I don’t have a problem. I could stop anytime I want. It just happens that I don’t want to stop right now.
Just another reason I’m looking forward to the app folders feature in the upcoming software upgrade! Hurry Steve “I own your soul” Jobs. I need folders. I really really do.
Click on images below to see my obsession, up close and personal. And be afraid. Be very very afraid.
Posted in Tech Toys No Comments »
May 17, 2010
We’re a two iPad family and if the cats had opposing digits instead of paws we’d probably need to double that number. As it stands I’m sharing my 3G Bright and Shiny Object with the puddy cats who have conversations with Cat Commander and play bug tag with Apps for Cats. Seriously. Apps for cats. Next thing you know they’re going to want their own email accounts.
So here’s my iPad booty all packed up and ready for the weekly pilgrimage to Starbucks. The solid-sided case is by Cocoon Innovations and was originally designed for a netbook and while they have a thinner model specifically for the iPad I like the extra space this one provides for my bluetooth keyboard and Griffin iPad A-Frame Stand. The case also comes with a center grid flap where I store a cloth for cleaning the touch screen, power adapter and cord, earbuds, extra batteries for the keyboard, stylus pen, my iPhone and a red movie peg just in case I want to watch a movie on my iPhone. Who am I kidding?! As if I’m ever going to watch a movie on that little weeny screen again. Yeh. Right.
I had both the Wifi (hers) and the 3G (mine) shipped on the first day each was released which has meant up to now I’ve more or less been an unpaid Apple iPad Representative in their Starbucks Division every time I pull out my iPad at one of their dinky Frisbee tables, the truth is I actually enjoy answering the same questions over and over or providing yet another spontaneous demo of Photo Album and Newsy. I’m just that crazy in love with my iPad, while never forgetting the profound wisdom imparted by Janeane Garofalo in The Truth about Cats and Dogs, which if I may now take the liberty to rephrase, “You can love your iPad, you just can’t love your iPad.”
Oh, and are you completely loving on the il Tricolore decal skin? I know. Awesome.
Posted in Italy, Our Home No Comments »
May 17, 2010
The plan all week was to head over to John Muir National Forest for a hike through the woods on Saturday morning, but when Saturday morning arrived, a lazy car trip and lunch at a small coastal town sounded even better. And it was.
Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer
Posted in Day Trips/Weekend Escapes, Farmers Market/Street Food, Restaurants No Comments »
March 29, 2010
I’m pretty sure I’m covered in the Maps of Italy Department.
Posted in Italy, Travel No Comments »
March 27, 2010
I’ve never found diet books to be particularly helpful since the problem for me has never been about not knowing what to do. I don’t need one more food plan or another exercise routine. After more than forty years of trying diet after diet and accumulating a stack of unused gym memberships I don’t need more education about what to do; I need more motivation to keep me doing what I know I need to do, and I don’t get that motivation from diet books but from the personal stories of others who have been there and done that. If someone’s further down the road than me and has found some success along the way then I want to hear what they have to say more than I want to listen to what some naturally thin diet expert has to tell me. I need to be inspired.
That’s why I watch The Biggest Loser. Those are my people. The details of their stories may be different from mine but the physical challenges obesity brings, the public humiliations that come with the territory, and the insanity of the food obsession is something we share in common and so when one of them is telling one of their fat stories or whining about the work involved in losing the weight or celebrating a victory like wearing their first pair of jeans or being able to touch their toes, I get it. We’re not only in the same book. We’re on the same page. Every season when a new batch of chunky monkeys (and I say chunky monkeys with tenderness, not sarcasm) stand on those ginormous scales for the first time I’m reminded of how miserable life was then and how committed I am to holding on to and building on the life I now have; and when I watch them celebrate their new life on the season finale, I can’t help but sniffle and tear up empathetic to the happiness they must feel in leaving their old life behind and their hope in the new life before them. Those moments are so inspiring that I’m willing to endure a thousand cheesy produce placements and awkwardly acted “spontaneous” commercials for a few truly genuine and heart-warming revelations.
So I naturally loved Fat Chance: Losing the Weight, Gaining My Worth, by former Biggest Loser contestant Julie Hadden. In an often-humorous and always inspiring way, Julie shares behind the scenes stories from her season on the show and describes her own personal journey toward as the sub-title reveals, losing weight and gaining self-worth. Duh. What I didn’t expect to find that Julie is a seriously hardcore Christian and so the book blends her witness as a Christian with her experience toward reclaiming her life and health. Because I’m a rather passionate Jesus girl myself, I really enjoyed the blend of the power of God and the power of Jillian as influences in her life!
One of the sections in the book I really connected with was when Julie wrote about three myths she had bought into around weight loss and maintaining a life of good health. The myths are Julie’s. The comments are mine.
Myth 1: It will get easier.
I really did believe that once I lost the weight maintaining my weight would be comparatively easy, but as you know from reading previous posts, oh, the sweet delusion of ignorance. I know this can be hard to hear when you still have a mess of weight to loss but in my experience, losing the weight is the easier part. Losing weight when I was 325, 275, and 190 pounds was made easy (relatively that is) because there was a constant pay off whether it was fitting into a smaller pair of pants, doing something I couldn’t physically do before, or having someone comment on how good I was looking. I use to ridicule normal weight people who whined about not being able to lose those nasty 5 or 10 pounds. “Oh boo-hoo, poor little you!” I had so little compassion for a 5-pounder knowing that my own weight was exactly the same as the Chicago Bears quarterback, William Refrigerator Perry. I kid you not. But now I get it. Trying to lose 5 pounds at 166 pounds is proving to be more difficult than losing 25 at 300 pounds, and then getting to a weight and maintaining it is a whole other ballgame. There aren’t new noteworthy successes around every corner. People stop commenting on your weight loss and how great you look. Your clothes and body aren’t constantly changing. You work out work out work out and instead of the scales dropping into another 10 pound range you’re lucky if there’s a shift in ounce measurements. So it doesn’t get easier but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing in the first place. Do the hard work of losing the excess weight because you deserve to be healthy and when you get to the weight you want to maintain then just do the work that’s required to stay there one day at a time. Considering the options, it’s worth the hard work because you’re worth the hard work and the good health.
Myth 2: One bad choice won’t matter.
I spent 40 plus years of my life telling myself that it wouldn’t matter, just this once. This one cookie. This one trip to the fast food restaurant. This one day of laying for hours on the couch. The end result was that I got up to 325 pounds one bad choice at a time. One bite. One meal. One bag. One container. Just one and just this one time. The truth is that very choice matters because the next choice builds on the choice before. It would go something like this. “I’ve been doing so good on my diet and I really really want one bowl of ice cream. Just one and no more. I know I probably shouldn’t but really, this will be all I have. Just one bowl.” So I’d eat the one bowl of ice cream and then a few minutes or maybe a few hours later I’d start negotiating inside my head. “I know I shouldn’t have any more ice cream but I had such a small bowl the last time and since there’s only a little ice cream left in the container I might as well finish it up. That way all the ice cream will be gone and I can start fresh tomorrow.” And the next day would come and maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t have more ice cream but usually I did. More ice cream. Another trip through the drive-thru. Another phone call for another four meal deal delivery from the Chinese restaurant.
But the good news is that just as one bad choice matters so does one good choice and good choices are something we get the opportunity to make every minute of every day. Choose to not make another trip to the refrigerator. Choose to not get a second plate of food. Choose the apple over the candy bar. Choose to walk one more block. Choose water over soda. Choose to go to bed an hour earlier. Good choice after good choice after good choice add up to getting you where you want to be. It happens one choice at a time and it’s in your and my power to decide whether that will be a choice that will work against us or for us.
Myth 3: Hard work equals radical results.
I’ve been working hard in recent months. I follow a limited food plan, saying no a thousand times a day to a bite of something here or there. I pass by the free samples at the grocery store. I put nearly blue low-fat milk in my coffee when I want cloud white cream. There are days when I’m craving a big bowl of pasta glistening in butter and instead I belly up to the bar for a bowl of steamed cauliflower with non-fat dressing. I go to the gym five days a week to work out with my trainer or take a high intensity cardio class. I spend an hour in spin class indoors and I ride my bike to get there. I’ve been working hard and doing all I can do and I’m getting minuscule results. I’m not losing the weight I want to lose but what I am is healthier and stronger than I’ve ever been, my weight is stabilizing, and most days I feel good about myself and where I am. Sometimes we need to take our eyes off the results and just focus on what we’re doing and let our satisfaction be found there. If we make those good choices one day at a time and do the hard work then the results will come in their own time. We can’t control when. Most of the time hard work doesn’t equal radical results. Hard work equals hard work and that in itself is a reward, especially for those of us who’ve spent years ignoring our health and our own needs.
Those are the 3 myths that Julie Hadden wrote about in her book but there are plenty of other myths around weight loss and good health that need to be dispelled. Can you describe another myth? I’ll send my copy of “Fat Chance” to the first person who posts another myth and explains how it’s impacted them.
Posted in Health and Nutrition, Maintaining Weight, Weight Loss 3 Comments »
March 27, 2010
When we first started planning for our trip to Italy we didn’t give much thought to including Florence as it just seemed a little too far and complicated for a day trip from our home base in Montalcino especially with all the restrictions around driving and parking within the city and taking a bus or train just wouldn’t give us enough time. The other issue was it would be double the price in lodging to stay overnight in Florence since we’d still need to be paying for our rental apartment in Montalcino while we were away. After giving it some thought we decided that Florence would need to be filed under Next Time We Go to Italy.
Flip the calendar ahead a few weeks to today and as our plans now stand we’ll be staying in Florence for four days and three nights and though we’re scheduled to be in Italy for 30 days it’s those four days in Florence that I’ve been planning for and thinking about the most. So why the decision to add Florence to our plans? First on the list would be Florence herself. My good gnocchi, have you seen fotos of the place?! The visual impression of the city alone hooked me like a flapping carp on a fishing line, and there are all the people who inspired my recent Florence fondness and I list them in no particular order.
1. Judy Witts Francini. I happened upon an interview with Divina Cucina on a podcast episode of How to Tour Italy. The host, Anthony Capozzoli was talking with Judy about her walking and tasting day tours (emphasis mine) through the central market in Florence for food-lovers called “Mondays at the Market.” The descriptions of the market and the passion and joy that came through in the interview grabbed me since one of the things I most enjoy doing locally is going over to the farmer’s market at San Francisco’s Ferry Street Building on Saturday mornings to cruise the seasonal produce, artisan cheeses, and munch down a cone of tasty, salted pig parts from Chris Costino’s Boccalone Salumeria, and so with this kind of shared passion for food porn, Judy had me at 30 year old balsamic.
2. The Florence Fans over at Slow Travel Talk who share some amazingly alluring stories of their travel adventures and discoveries to this beautiful city.
3. Samantha Brown in her episode on Florence. Okay, first of all she was her usual adorable self, staying in deluxe accommodations that are out of reach for everyone but the ruling class and celebrity travel guides but still, everything about her tour of the city was splendiferiously charming. Splendiferiously. My word. Use it wisely.
And finally,
4. David. The David. Michelangelo’s David. I must see that 17 foot hunk of gorgeous marble man close up and personal at least once in my life. He’s my bucket list boyfriend.
These are the people and reasons, among many others, while we’ll be hitching the train from nearby Buonconvento to Florence for a few days to explore one of the most beautiful cities in the world. So they say. So we shall see! As I mentioned in a previous post we’ll be staying at il Bargello Bed and Breakfast, which we also learned about through How to Tour Italy as well as finding it came highly recommended by Rick Steves and several other travel sites like Trip Advisor. Geobeats has a nice video on the place along with some other fun videos related to Florence.
In addition to spending time ogling my bucket list boyfriend, D and I have booked a “Monday at the Market” tour with Divina Cucina for Thursday since we’ll still be at our Montalcino basecamp on Monday, and as it happens Judy will be in the Bay area this Spring and so we’ll have the chance to meet up with her at an upcoming book-signing in Napa. I want to add that in exploring other local resources in Florence online I discovered Taste Florence, that also leads walking food tours in the same general area of Florence as those led by Judy. While we opted to go with Divina Cucina due to hearing her interview and following her blog for sometime, I’ve been equally impressed and grateful with the personal correspondence I’ve had with Toni at Taste Florence and I hope to shadow her tour for a bit or chat for a bit over an espresso in vetro within the sound of a piazza fountain.
And this is what it’s all about for me. The connections with people, whether Italian by birth or ex-pats by choice. I’ve done the tourist thing; rushing from location to location, moving in a pack of other gawking, camera-toting tourists like me and isolated from the real life of the people. That’s how I’ve seen Rome twice before, and that’s the difference; I saw Rome but I wasn’t in Rome. I was just a passive observer, no more engaged with the life or the people than had I watched a travel show on Rome from the comfort of my own couch. I’ve also had the opportunity one time in my life to spend three months in Jerusalem. I lived in a small neighborhood on the edge of the city, waited at the corner bus stop, walked to the market, chatted as best as my limited Hebrew allowed over the backyard fence with the neighbors, and avoided the tourist areas like a bad rash. Kosher Heaven.
I’m probably just dreaming the dream of all travelers but I’m hoping to experience a little of what I came to know in 90 days in Jerusalem in 30 days in Italy. Sure. I want to see the land and the places that come to anyone’s mind when you talk about Italy but just as much I hope to have some chance encounters with people; to learn what their village or town means to them, how long their family has been there, and what life is like for them. Italian people. Italian life. I want to do a little more than observe Italy. I want a chance to taste it. In the lively chatter in the piazza. In spirited exchanges in the market or a small shop. In friendly conversations over dinner at a nearby trattoria.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
Posted in Italy, Travel No Comments »
