Proud To Be American...?

"Delicacies of Stars and Stripes" (rough translation).

Hmmmm so it's "American" Food week/month over here at Lidl, the supermarket down the street. I'm a little horrified.

In picture one, going left to right and starting from the top shelf we have: pop corn, hamburger "sauce," mustard, mayonnaise, cranberry juice (in Italian known as "American blueberries"), cheesecake, apple pie, cherry pie, apple crumble, muffins, cookies, and two different kinds of chips.

More cranberry juice, peanut butter (smooth and crunchy!), hot dogs in a jar (that made me wanna puke), craisins, jelly beans, those weird gummy hamburgers, pickles, chocolate and lemon cakes, pancake mix in a plastic container, marshmallows (BBQ marshmallows--I think the BBQ refers to the fact that you are supposed to roast them...), and finally, ketchup.

I don't know which part of this is most offensive...

Well, I'm making the most of it. We'll be making s'mores and puppy chow very soon.

In other news...

I got new sandals! Having come in winter, I had only brought shoes with no air pockets to relieve my feetsies. To spare people of the putrid smell that comes after I take off my shoes (due to the excessive heat--it's not a normal occurrence), I'll be wearing these from now on.

Kitties!

We found these cuties when we went to Parco Amendola.

Scariest store front ever.

ET and a giant hand. There's more that my camera didn't catch. Asia is mesmerized, or scared.

And Modena is pretty during the day...

and at night.

-Meri

My Penultimate Visitors!

My aunt and uncle, Cary and Margie, have been traveling all over Italy since June 11th. They started in Rome and are currently in Venice. They stopped in Bologna for a few days and I convinced them to head over to Modena a couple of times.

First, we met up in Bologna, and Cary began his insistent photo-taking.

We had some cappuccino far too late in the day, just like Americans should.

I showed them around town. That's the face I make when someone asks what something is and I have absolutely no idea.

It happens pretty frequently.

In Modena, we visited some of my favorite places, like Bar Tiffany.

And Mercato Albinelli.

We ate cherries, apricots, and strawberries.

Then we went to an amazing lunch at this place, Il Fantino. It's tucked away on a tiny side street and has incredible food.

Oh, and apparently there was an earthquake that we didn't feel...

-Meri

Vignola: The Search for a Torta Barozzi

The last time we went to Vignola, our main goal was to eat a Torta Barozzi from this Pasticceria Gollini. And it was closed.

So we set off again in the hopes that it would be open. It helped that there was a cherry festival going on at the same time so we would have something to distract our (mostly my) disappointment.

This time we took the easy route; we skipped out on the nature trail for the sake of our bikes (and maybe our own sanity).

We headed straight for our target pasticceria.

As you can tell from my double thumbs up, it was open! Yay!

I went in and immediately asked for a piece of Torta Barozzi. And some coffee. I had to get up at 9:30 (in the morning!) for this trip. A whole hour and a half before my new wake-up time.

There was a little pamphlet on the table, giving the history of the Torta Barozzi in four different languages.

It was a tiny piece, but satisfying because this cake is so incredibly dense. And so incredibly delicious.

Next, our tummies told us that eating only chocolate cake and coffee after riding our bikes for an two and a half hours was not a good plan.

So I got some tigelle--one with prosciutto crudo and the other with salami and cheese.

For the rest of our time we walked around the cherry festival (and we downed one kilo of duroni in about 20 minutes).

And then we found this window display.

"Frightening" is the only word that comes to mind.

Vignola is a very cute little town. And it has castles, of course.

As you can see, the sky was foreboding on the way back, but we forged ahead.

And saw some cows.

And tried to get this cat to come play with me.

And became confused by this sign.

And this one. They seem to have named this street after Jack Kerouac for no apparent reason...

Then it started raining. And it didn't stop. We rode in the rain for about 45 minutes to an hour. Unfortunately, this was the first time I chose to wear shorts and a tank top in Italy because I expected it to be un-Godly hot. Instead, it was cold and rainy. We got many strange looks from the heavily covered and umbrella-ed Italians that hate to be touched by a drop of rain. First we rode our bikes 50 kilometers to eat a cake. Then we rode our bikes IN THE RAIN! Blasphemy.

Anyways, mission accomplished! Well, almost. You see, I bought a mini, packaged Torta Barozzi and the ingredients are listed on the back. Well, those ingredients do not match up with the recipes I've found online. At all.

New mission: figure out how to make the famous Torta Barozzi from Pasticceria Gollini.

-Meri

Adventures With Gigi

My friend Victoria lives with a hostess named Gigi. Gigi is hilarious and also completely insane.

We've taken two car trips, one to Mantova and one to "Parma" (I'll explain the quotations later). The above picture is one of my many failed attempts to get a good picture of the picturesque entrance into the tiny town of Mantova.

You can't tell from my pictures, but you arrive on a bridge so that there is water surrounding you and the city up ahead.

I swear it's really pretty and doesn't involve Gigi's head in the rear-view mirror.

It was a very cool little town.

We were admiring this little garden when a group of young tourists (we're talking 5th grade) entered.

We fled as fast as we could.

We walked around the town for a while, and eventually came across this street: Giovanni Arrivabene. Translation: Giovanni arrives well. I'm still curious if this was actually someone's name or someone had run out of famous Italians and needed to start getting creative with street names.

Mantova is famous for mostarda and tortelli di zucca. The first is a kind of candied fruit that is made with mustard seed. The second is pumpkin/butternut squash ravioli--AKA my favorite food on the planet. Or at least my favorite kind of pasta.

For lunch, we started with a plate of cheeses and mostarda. This plate has fig and pear mostarda. I forgot to take a picture, but we also pumpkin and apple mostarda.

It was delicious.

And the pumpkin tortelli were also amazing. They make the filling with the pumpkin mostarda so it gives it a really complex flavor--sweet, savory, and slightly spicy at the same time.

And served in a simple butter sauce with parmigiano grated over top.

Mantova also has a traditional dessert called Sbrisolina. When Gigi first tried to explain it to me, all she could come up with was "ummmmm crumbs and almonds. Yeah, crumbs...and almonds. You'll see."

Well, she could not have been more accurate. I got a tiny version, a Sbrisolina. And it was just that, crumbs and almonds.

After we found Gigi (she had left her phone at home and we luckily found each other while wandering around the city), she wanted to show us the Palazzo del Te. We weren't supposed to drive this close to it, but Gigi decided no one would mind us breaking the law.

The next trip that we took was to Parma. Or, at least that's where I thought we were going. I knew I was in for a unique trip when we started driving on the very scenic route.

For about an hour and a half I had no clue where we were. My phone had no service and there were no road signs.

Though, it was certainly pretty.

This dog was wondering what we were doing intruding on his property.

Yep. This continued for a while.

Most of the trip involved us driving through the mountains, becoming hungry, passing a bunch of viable restaurants, stopping at restaurants closed on Tuesdays, and then finally deciding on a place in Albinea, a town in the province of Parma.

When we asked Gigi about going to Parma (as in the main center that was certainly likely to have an open restaurant), she responded "oh, it's all Parma." Hence the earlier use of quotations.

And then she didn't like the restaurant we ended up going to after two and a half hours traveling through the mountains anyways. The tortelli were not up to par. However, I'm still thankful that Gigi was willing to drive me to all kinds of new places--places I would never have seen without her lack of directional skills.

In other news, I've decided that I want to go to culinary school in Italy. You know, if I get accepted to a school and all.

I've chosen ALMA as my first choice. I have an interview there on June 14th.

The school happens to be located in Colorna, Parma, and Gigi graciously offered to drive there so I could see it.

The school is located in the Palace.

And there is this pretty garden outside.

Fingers crossed over here.

-Meri