Italy Adventure: Day 1 - Arrival

Ciao from Italy! Right now I'm relaxing in my little bed listening to crickets and the occasional bell chimes in the distance. It's about 10ish p.m. My apartment has a view of the surrounding valleys and wineries, it's beyond beautiful. I really can't describe how amazing it is to be here (view from both of the windows above). Not sure what that brick building is but I went up the stairs and the top is a patio with a cool looking clay oven then. It's seperate from the house.

So 20 hours after my first take off from Sea-Tac...I made it. Barely. For some reason my last plane cancelled my reservation (pretty wonky considering I checked in 19 hours earlier...). So they weren't going to let me on but after a whole lot of angry Italians a frantic stewardess let me on. I felt pretty cool being shuttled to my small plane where I got to walk up the stairs into the plane. It was almost like my private jet. I can pretend anyway. The above picture is a plane view of Ancona, the coastal city I flew into (about 20 minutes from the winery).

My hosts, Corrado and Valeria, are a beautiful Italian couple I would guess in their late twenties or early thirties. They have two beautiful children, Jackeau (I know I totally butchered that, I'll figure the spelling out later, age 5) and Julia (age 2). I am pretty sure the only thing that seeing those children kind of makes me want to have children. Obviously not now, but 2 little kids with curly sandy blonde hair speaking Italian is seriously the CUTEST thing ever.

So Valeria was so sweet, she picked me up at the airport. We drove home into the sunset...pretty phenomonal. And we pulled into La Distesa. It is exactly how I imagined it would be. Straight out of Under the Tuscan Sun. This gorgeous quirky home is sort of set apart like a duplex. Corrado and Valeria live upstairs towards the back and the apartments for WWOOFers is up another set of stairs facing the entrance of the winery. We have a shared bathroom and kitchen to ourselves. Which by the way, the kitchen is the cutest thing on earth. It has a stone fireplace with a cast iron pot. It basically reminds me of what Cinderella lived in.Turns out this vineyard used to belong to Corrado's parents. He and Valeria moved out here 10 years ago to take care of the place and produce wine. They mostly produce white wine, and some olive groves. I just found out I will probably be able to help with the olive harvesting as well so I am really excited for that. I thought I would miss out on it because it's normally done during the winter months. But apparently it has been unusually warm this year. And Cupramontana, the town we are in is well known for the wines that are produced. I am so excited to learn more.

I learned there will be two more WWOOFers joining me tomorrow, both are also American. Valeria and Corrado speak great english, but I am really excited to start learning some Italian. The children are so precious, the little boy wants to learn English so I am sure we are going to have some good times coming up.

I had my first homemade Italian dinner. It was perfect. I also learned that apparently they eat their meals backwards from us. Sort of. We started with some simple spaghetti noodles with olive olive, peppers and garlic. Then had some sort of sauteed pork with an assortment of veggies which included some kind of mushroom that apparently grows in the wild that you can go forge. Might have to try that before I leave. Then came the salad and then came the dessert (which was a pie crust like thing with a fig like jam on top. We of course had some wine. I laughed with Corrado asked me if I liked wine. It was a delicious white wine that he produced. I'll have to get the name of it....Everything is in Italian so it's hard to remember. I didn't take photos because I didn't want to creep out my hosts right away. But hopefully soon!

I am having a wonderful time already. I can't imagine what is in store for me next!

Holiday Fun - On my own and with my mom!

Well it's definitely that time of the year...I start to build my winter coat (somehow it came on early this year once I finished my half marathon and stopped major physical activity everyday).

I've been slacking in writing mostly because my camera has been out of commission so you'll have to forgive me for the not so great quality pictures in this post. But here we go!

I recently hosted my very first very own holiday party. This year has been particularly special to me, as I have moved out on my own for the very first time, and not dating anyone (which put a damper when I needed help with things like Christmas lights or carrying the 5 bags of groceries into my house). Most of my guy friends are either too far away now to hang out with me or unavailable for other reasons. My party was simple and small...although fitting 12 people into my 500 square foot apartment was interesting! But we all had a great time and even had a white elephant exchange.

Ironically, almost everyone ended up with a gift that related to their personality. I got an aphrodisiac cookbook called "Intercourses"....which will come in handy SOMEDAY when I have a boyfriend. :)


As far as the hor d'oeuvres, I decided to cheat a little. By using different pastry doughs, I created a few different dishes, just with different fillings. Above is smoked salmon wrapped with some whipped cream cheese, dill and thyme. I also made my signature shrimp bites on french bread. I also stuffed some crescent rolls with smoked salmon and cream cheese. There was also some stuffed crescent rolls with sauteed mushrooms, garlic, spinach, and onions. I also cut up some pastry sheets and rolled them with some feta and roasted walnuts. And of course there was a veggie platter with hummus and ranch. My friend made some chocolate cookies with peppermint kisses in the middle. I'm mad I didn't take a picture but I know one of my friends did...I'll upload it later when i get my hands on it. I baked some pastry shells and filled them with whip cream, and topped it with blueberries and raspberries and a mint to garnish for dessert as well. Over all these only took me a couple hours to make, and were relatively easy.

Everything but the pastry dough was homemade! Well and minus the hummus and veggies. :) I also made some mulled wine, (not pictured) and it turned out fantastic! I looked at a few recipies and decided to create my own. Some were pretty basic while others were pretty complex. Last year my roomate made the mulled wine so I have no idea what she put in it. But essentially my recipie was as follows:

Merry Mulled Wine (serves up to 10)
- 5 bottles of 2 Buck Chuck (Cabernet Sauvignon)
- A few sprigs of rosemary (3-4 stems about 4-5 inches long)
- 10-12 cloves
- 7 cinnamon sticks
- 4 oranges (freshly squeezed for juice)
- 3 medium apples sliced (anything but Fuji and Granny Smith works - I can't remember what I used)
- 1 cup of honey

And all I did was heat up the honey in a big pot so it became less viscous and started adding the wine and seasonings and fruit. I heated it up for about an hour and a half before i served it. It was pretty tasty! Orange zest would make a nice garnish but since I had too many things going on. I had to make sure everyone got their holiday mugs and party favors! :)

Overall I thought it was a success. And then I went home and that's where my mom showed me what real cookin' is all about. With my help of course.


My mom worked on the roast beef and I prepared scalloped potatoes with a bechamel sauce and raisins.



And 3 hours later....we were feasting!!

Rib eye Roast anyone?

The potatoe medley with rasins and a bechamel sauce.

This salmon dish is SOO delish. It combines the best sweet and tart levels...I'm not sure whats in it...we baked the salmon with some teriyaki sauce and then my mom sauteed some asian greens/chives of some sorts and a mushroom sauce and spritzed it with lime juice. I can't really describe the taste. Except that it is delish. Maybe I'll write about it sometime.

My mom was on a mushroom kick...here's another side dish with some friendly fungi with mini onions.

And of course some sauteed garlic green beans/snow peas and almonds.

The end result:


Merry Christmas everyone!