Trying a new (Italian) restaurant

We were looking for new places to try for Italian food.

After doing a search of nearby restaurants, I came up with Calzolaio Pasta Company in Wilton, Maine

Eggplant Fries

Wait. What? Eggplant fries?

In the spirit of adventure, my husband agreed to try them. I love eggplant but he does not.

These things were amazing! They were a little crispy but light and the gravy that came with them for dipping was almost as good as my own. I would have bought some if they sold jars of it.

Everything else was excellent as well. The bread. The Angry Meat Pizza. The Chicken Parmigiana. To me, the mark of a great restaurant is that there are so many things that sound so great that you want to try them all. Keep reading

The best appliance in my kitchen is:

The Air Fryer!

I have a small kitchen with not much counter space, so the last thing that I am ever thinking is, “Hey, maybe I need more small appliances!”

And then one day I was chatting with my friend Annette who told me how much she loved hers.

Also, my daughter wanted one. It was right before Christmas (as I recall; there is always the chance that she might dispute this) so we decided to get her one. We got a small version, because if history predicts the future, this small appliance would be relegated to the shelves in my basement where old small appliances that are never used go to die, Keep reading

Chocolate chock full of heavy metals

“I’d like a side of lead and cadmium with my dark chocolate”–

said nobody, ever.

I was paging through the February 2023 issue of Consumer Reports and discovered that these heavy metals are apparently exactly what I have been unknowingly getting. You know, in dark chocolate? The kind that is supposed to be “better for you” (p. 34)?

I think of the couple of bars of Green & Black’s that I have sitting in my desk drawer that are now going into the trash instead of my body. Before throwing them out, I looked at the Nutrition Facts label. Shockingly, lead and cadmium are missing from the list! I looked at the list of ingredients and once again, lead and cadmium are omitted. I wonder what other foods and products contain toxic ingredients that somehow never made it on the packages ingredients list. Keep reading

Pastina Emergency!

I have been making Pastina for decades, since my children were babies. Back then, they called it “Stini”, and sometimes I still do. It was a quick, easy, comforting thing to eat and they loved it.

Making Pastina was also a tradition, because my mother and my grandmother made it for me when I was a baby and for all the years after that.

Over the past several months, I have been having trouble finding Pastina at the grocery store. I had quite a stash so I didn’t worry too much about this at first. I preferred Prince Pastina but decided that Barilla or Ronzoni would also be fine. Keep reading

Eat your weeds

Have you ever eaten dandelions?

When I was little, my grandmother would send me out to the yard to pick dandelion leaves. After I brought them in, we’d put them in a large bowl and soak them in salt water, rinse, and then soak them again, and then soak them again (because third time is the charm), and then rinse well, making sure to get all the grit out.

When foraging outside, it’s important to pay attention to where the greens are located. For example: are they close to the road where car exhaust could adversely affect them? This time, I only had to venture to the back porch because this year, my husband made a planter with dandelions for me. Keep reading

Sitting and flitting

I rarely have an unscheduled day but today, I did.

A day to do whatever I feel like doing whenever I feel like doing it.

Started it off well as usual with #CeleryJuice (there is actually a new book coming out devoted entirely to the benefits of this: Medical Medium Celery Juice by Anthony William) and #HeavyMetalDetoxSmoothie (thank you for these, #MedicalMedium).

After that, it turned out to be a day of sitting and flitting from couch to computer to kitchen (#ilovealliteration) … I took periodic forays off the couch to do whatever popped into my head to do. I flitted from one thing to the next to the next without censoring my thoughts or impulses. Keep reading