If you have followed this blog for any length of time you know that Roberto loves his pizza. Being from Rome, Italy, although not THE capital of pizza that Naples is, he still knows a thing or two about what pizza should really be like (if you would like to see what we think makes a pizza great, check out this article ). So as always, when we change living locations we are always on the quest for the best pizza around (if you want to see where the best pizza in the US is that we have found so far, check out this article ).

If you live in Saint Augustine, Florida or have ever spent time here, you know there are tons of pizza joints. One night we were in the mood for a slice so we decided to check out Pizza Time’s Brooklyn style pizza on St. George’s Street. Now as you know, generally we are not big fans of New York style pizza. The crust is much more floppy than the classical Italian version and so it never quite meets up to our crunch standards. But Pizza Time displays many of their pie choices in the window and they looked really good. Plus I loved the sign in the window saying: “I’m Italian, I don’t need a recipe!”
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This restaurant which is often touted as a place for tourists is in fact, great for tourists because it has a fantastic view of Matanzas Bay and The Bridge of Lions. You can see seagulls, fish and even dolphins playing in the water below you. But it is also a fun place for locals when you need to get your fix of watching crazy seagulls and attempt to feed them without getting your fingers bitten off! Kids will love it, too, as this place is more than food, it is also entertainment.

We had a great experience at The Santa Maria when my Dad and Stepmom were visiting a few weeks ago. We were going to take them to the A1A Alehouse, so they could get a nice view of the water and city, grab a pint of beer and enjoy the food, but they were closed for renovations. So A1A missed out!By this time we were so starving we didn’t know what to do. The belly was taking over the mind, so we ended up at The Santa Maria. I am really glad we did because I am sure this is exactly the kind of place I would have overlooked since it is right on the water and I have a theory that a good view does not always equate to good food. But I was happy that The Santa Maria proved me wrong.
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They should really call it Italian Restaurant Row. The North End of Boston is full of Italian restaurants, specialty food shops, café’s and apartments. It is a section of town devoted to all things Italian and most of the residents, shop keepers and restaurateurs are also Italian keeping the authenticity alive. You rarely see something like this is America anymore. As I discussed here growing up, when I went to visit my grandparents in Western PA, it was a little like this, although most of the ethnic groups were kind of mixed together even though each had their cultural Mecca’s. But here in Boston’s Little Italy, it is all Italian all the time. You actually hear Italian being spoken in the streets and everywhere you go. The TVs in the cafés have Italian stations playing soccer matches, in Italian. You can really get the flavor of Italy here just walking through the streets, but when you go into the restaurants and sit at the table to eat, it gets even better.

As many of you who have kept up with this blog and my other blog The Leftover Queen,
you know that Roberto and I have been on a quest for the perfect Italian pizza. We have tried making it at home and have gotten close several times. We have also spent endless trips all over town trying each pizza joint, hoping to find a bit of pizza gold! But to no avail…yet. Until we found Pizza Regina in Boston’s Little Italy. We should have expected something good when we saw the line coming out the door and onto the sidewalk. When we got in, the place was packed and full of the hustle of a great pizza place: lots of yelling back and forth between servers and cooks, pizza dough flying in the air as a backdrop and smells of melting cheese and tomato sauce. Roberto and I shared a Napoletana - a huge pie with anchovies, capers and olives. Rachel and Gwen, Roberto’s daughters shared a half mushroom, half meatball.

As soon as Roberto picked up his slice and it held up, with no drooping he was feeling inspired, when he flipped the slice over to reveal the tell- tell sign of flour on the bottom of the crust, he got more excited, and when he took that first bite, enjoying all the flavors of a pizza cooked to perfection, he was in heaven and declared that his search for real Italian pizza in the US was over! Big accolades for Regina’s!

After eating we decided to go for a walk and check out some of the shops. We were on a search for some real Parmigiano-Reggiano and Italian Salami. We checked out the Salumeria Italiana a specialty food shop full of Italian cheeses, meats and non-perishables. There was also a table full of fresh baked bread. We picked up some Parmigiano and some assorted olives for snacking.

We then moved on to Café Graffiti where I enjoyed a deliciously bitter macchiato.

Roberto had a childhood favorite, Crodino – a bright red bitter (that matched his shirt that day!), which to Rachel, Gwen and I tasted like cough syrup (same color too)
and the girls each enjoyed a fruit nectar. Here is Racehl enjoying hers.

Refreshed we spent the next few hours walking around and enjoying the sights sounds and smells.

We stopped by the Old North Church, where on April 18, 1775 the church sexton, Robert Newman, climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea and not by land. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution.

As well as St. Leonard’s Church, the first Roman Catholic church in new England built by Italian immigrants. All of these sights can be found in the North End.

Before leaving we had to make one more stop – we had to get Gelato, of course. I have been to The North End before and have always loved the nocciola gelato at Café Vittoria, a historical North End Café, and was dying to have it once more. Much to my dismay, they were out of Nocciola, so I settled for Coffee. Roberto had his obligatory Pistachio, Rachel went for Chocolate Chip,

and Gwen not knowing what to get opted for Spumoni after I told her my Grandfather used to get that for me when I was her age! We all enjoyed it AND our trip to little Italy!

*NOTE*: Some of these photographs were taken by Rachel Campus, Roberto’s daughter, who is a budding photographer. I guess she took after her dad on that one!

I had been hearing about Bella Luna for a while. I heard that is was independently owned, that it had a beautiful ambience and inventive upscale Italian cuisine but what really got me to go and check it out was that I heard they had a beautiful gargantuan Cassata – Sicilian wedding cake – with layers of sweetened ricotta cheese, white cake and candied fruits . I love a good Cassata and it was a night on one of these rare occasions that I was craving some pasta (mostly I am a really bad Italian, as I do not like eating lots of pasta) and in celebration of our pending nuptials that we decided to check out Bella Luna, celebrate a bit with my mom and see for ourselves!
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This is my submission for the
W is for Writing Challenge Jeff has put forth on C is for Cooking

Isn’t it amazing how a taste of something can bring you back to the past? One minute you are sitting enjoying a sweet treat at the end of a pizza and pasta dinner wondering what your angle should be for yet another Italian restaurant review and in the next moment you are an eight year old child sitting in the Italian hall enjoying the same sweet treat with your Pap-Pap. Sometimes, it has been so long since you had that particular taste that you forgot that it even existed. In that same moment that you are tasting this long-forgotten delight, moments in your life you had also forgotten come flooding back – now full of emotion because they had been forgotten for so long you did not realize how much you missed those simple, wonderful moments that you had no idea you would miss so much later at the original time you experienced them.
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We were in Orlando this past weekend celebrating our engagement and were looking for some good Mediterranean food. There is every kind of restaurant imaginable in Orlando, but what we experienced at Ali Baba’s was more than we could have dreamed up.
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Has anyone seen Giada De Laurentiis’ new show on Food Network, Giada in Paradise?

As far as I can tell from the listings it is a special only. So far she has been to Santorini, which is my ultimate dream trip and Capri, which is not too far behind! When we watch this show at my house, it must sound like we are watching sports. We make all the same noises that sports fans make when their team scores a point, falls down or takes a hit to the stomach with a flying ball. We love this show, but we also are tortured by it because we want to be there more than anything else! When Giada takes a bite of something delicious you hear groans from our couch, when she steps foot somewhere we’d like to be, you will often hear a “yes!” as she starts describing a dream spot. This show is really giving me the travel bug big time, which is a great motivational tool to get me fired up to continue with all my projects and find more!
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Welcome to post 10 bazillion of Gelato Nation! I feel like all I do lately is write about Gelaterias. I guess that is because I seem to have a sixth sense for them. Any town we go to, I can always find the tell-tale signs. I look for people in the streets walking with those quintessential shovel-spoons, I scan store windows for neon or painted signs with letter combinations beginning in G and ending in O with a T in the middle. I sniff out the smell of cones baking in the oven. I search the faces of people for that Gelato-Blissed-Out look.

And then I spring and devour in delight! This has become a joke at home now, everyone thrilled with my new my super-gelato-powers to scope out the good stuff!
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Our quest for authentic Italian Gelato in America lead us to Ft. Lauderdale this weekend, and it fulfilled our greatest hopes! Owners of Gelato Dream and Ciao Café (right on the strip on Ft. Lauderdale Beach Blvd), Leonardo and Silvia Baldi are building a Gelato empire in the US and that is a good thing for all of us! They came to Ft. Lauderdale from Asti, Italy 5 years ago and opened their first Gelato stand – Gelato Dream. It was so popular that they had to open Ciao Café a mere 3 years later. Even though there are 2 locations now, we still had to stand in line – something I have never seen before and it boded well!
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Something really special happened this weekend in Ocala, Florida. It was a magical sort of something. Where one minute you are in an empty ballroom in the middle of CTAE (Community Technical and Adult Education) and the next you find yourself transported to a Middle Eastern Hafla (or dance party). This is an event that happens annually in Ocala, but only for one night and trust me, you do not want to miss it next year.
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This week, to keep the Mediterranean Food theme going, I am featuring Moroccan Modern
as the Product of the week. This cookbook features the fabulous foods of Morocco. Tasty bits like Tagine. Tagine dishes are slow cooked at low temperatures, resulting in tender, falling-off-the-bone meat with aromatic vegetables and sauce. Tagine is also the name of the pottery vessel in which this traditional Moroccan dish is cooked. The cookbook also teaches you how to make CousCous the right way, and how to make delicious salads with the fruits of Morocco, like dates, almonds and oranges. Each recipe also has a full sized picture of what the recipe should look like – something that in my opinion is invaluable when publishing a cookbook, and often times something too many forget. The simple way in which the cookbook is written means that is perfect for novice and chef alike! Start drooling!

Now that we know what types of eating establishments exist In Italia, we should now learn the names of mealtimes and what kinds of food you can expect to find during those meals.
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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.
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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!

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.

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Since we have all been drooling over the delicious Clams Marinara I had at Sammy’s Restaurant in Ocala, I thought it would be appropriate to post a recipe for clams and tomato sauce so we can all try making it at home! Buon Divertimento!
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We had some wonderful out of town guests visiting us this week, and so we decided to take them to a family favorite:
Sammy’s Italian Restaurant in Ocala, Florida .
It is in a strip mall and looks like a hole in the wall from the outside, but once you go inside, you are greeted with the Sicilian flag, painted murals on the walls and the wafting smells of good home-style Italian food cooking away in the kitchens.
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I am addicted to my new caffettiera, an Italian made stovetop espresso machine.
The Bialetti Moka Express Stovetop Espresso Maker is a really great one!
It is just as easy to use as a coffee pot, even more simple. Just fill the lower compartment with water and the filter with coffee grinds, stick it on the stove, and let the heat do the magic.
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These adorable, festive Easter breads have been a tradition in my family for as far back as anyone can remember. My great Aunt Sylvia, who was a Master Baker and originally from Abruzzi, is the one we remember as the inventor of these breads . My Aunt Carol (Her daughter) thinks it must have a connection to traditional Italian Easter Breads that were blessed at church. However the bunnies themselves were always intended for children and were never blessed at church. She is not sure where the recipe came from, but Aunt Sylvia and her sisters always made them, and now, so do we!
They are an event to make, so give yourself an afternoon to make them. They are cute and so memorable! Make them a tradition in your family too!
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