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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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!
Read the rest of this entry »

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!
Read the rest of this entry »

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!
Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week, to keep the Mediterranean Food theme going, I am featuring
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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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!