Just a reminder, each week I will be posting the Mediterranean Recipe Of The Week on my new website, The Leftover Queen. This week, in honor of Cugine’s will be Pomegranate Granita - An adult version of a snow cone! I hope you will join me there!

Nestled away in a tiny shopping center, lies a hidden gem. If refreshing summer flavors or a piece of New York City are what you are craving, then you cannot miss a visit to Cugine’s Italian Ice, in Ocala, Florida. Owners, Jason and Kimberly, opened this shop full of New York delicacies about nine months ago. Everything in their shop from Italian Ice to Cannoli and New York Style Hot Pretzels are all imported from the Big Apple. Nothing reproduced here; it is all the real deal.
Read the rest of this entry »

In the spirit of getting to know my new home state better and write about it for all to enjoy, we were forced yet again to go off exploring. I know such a hardship. We decided this time to go for a coastal jaunt to Cedar Key, Florida as it is less than two hours drive and because this past weekend they were having an Art Festival, the 41st Annual Old Florida Celebration of the Arts. Cedar Key is the perfect place for a day trip. From the Ocala area, it is an easy drive west, through beautiful country roads. However once you arrive, the country feeling leaves and you are greeted with pure island ambiance.
Read the rest of this entry »

I have a great announcement!
The food segments on this blog have become so popular and people have been making recipes I have posted on this site with such frequency that I have decided to start another blog that is entirely food related!

As everyone can see from this blog, I am very passionate about cooking, as much as traveling. So in order to not over run TravelCloseup with recipes and food related posts, I have decided to branch out. I have been working on the new site for about a month, posting recipes and getting it all ready for everyone to use.

The new site The Leftover Queen focuses on my passion for creative cooking. Basically looking at your fridge and pantry full of leftovers and deciding how you can put them together to make beautiful food fast, inexpensively and with an ethnic flair.

My hope is that it will become an interactive website where people will post comments about the recipes they tried on the site and how they liked them or changed ingredients so that other people can be inspired to try something different with ingredients they have.
I also share ingredients I feel are essential to have in your fridge and pantry so you are always prepared to make a delicious meal!

So starting now the Mediterranean Recipe of the Week will be on my New Website

But all restaurant reviews and food I come across in my travels will continue to be posted here.
The recipe this week is Pita Pizzas . Hope you enjoy it and enjoy what the Leftover Queen has to offer!
YUM YUM!

This week is restaurant week, so in the spirit of that we will be talking about restaurants in Italian. Namely, how to get to one when you
Ha fame (ah fah-meh) — Are Hungry….
Read the rest of this entry »

Last week we didn’t feel like cooking. I know unbelievable, right? But it is true. Some days, just like everyone else in America, I feel like going out for a slice of pizza. We (Roberto especially) have been on a quest for a good slice since we moved to Florida.
We heard that there was another Famous Pronto Pizza opening soon in the Heathbrook Shopping Center (off route 200, Ocala, FL for the Florida locals), so we decided to check it out.

Read the rest of this entry »

It feels like restaurant week on this blog! But lately, I guess I have been trying to get out more, and talk to more people in the restaurant business. I suppose this is the second phase of trying to get my name out there as a Professional Foodie.

I try to stay away from doing reviews of chain restaurants. I much more enjoy the flavor and creativity of local places that are doing their own thing with food. However, we do enjoy going to Hops Grill & Brewery (route 200, Ocala, FL), and since we are not originally from Florida, we didn’t know until this past week that it is a chain!
Read the rest of this entry »

My girl Rachael Ray has been getting a lot of flack lately, and I may get a lot of flack for writing this, but o’well, I am going to say it anyway! Seems that yet another talented, tough, hard working girl just got too famous for where some say she is supposed to be – she’s in the top of the cooking industry and she’s not even a real trained chef at that – blasphemy! Well I can admit that sometimes she is too hyper for my taste and perhaps she is a bit gruff and speaks her own language of abbreviations and short cuts which can annoy and confuse, but honestly, when I think about it, those personality quirks are outweighed by the many things I like about her.
Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of Rachael Ray and her easy way of cooking, it is only natural that this week’s Product Of The Week is her very first cookbook,
the cookbook she started while teaching people how to cook in grocery stores all around upstate New York. Check it out, then you can make your own opinions!

Since we are talking about food this week, I think it is important to know the basics when it comes to place settings in Italian. So here we have it:

Il Piatto (eel pee-ah-to)— The Plate
La Forchetta (la four-ket-ta)—The Fork
Il Cotello (eel kohl-tello) – The Knife
Il Cucchiaio (eel kook-kee-eye-oh)—The Spoon
Il Tovagliolo (eel toh-vahl-yoh-loh) –The Napkin

Now if only we could all eat our meals here, that would just be the icing on the cake as they say!