Forking Tasty

Christmas Cookies

If you know anything about how our family celebrates the holidays it is not like your ordinary family holiday. No, our holidays is packed with a ridiculous amount of food. Basically, if there is 10 people coming to eat we cook for 30. What do you expect, were Italian and we like to eat our delicious food more than just one day. We eat it over the course of a week, sometimes more. For instance, for dessert we made 15 different christmas cookies. Some of them were made 3x the regular recipe amount. Lets put it this way, picture your family dining room table that seats about 8. Now picture that entire table filled with tins of christmas cookies some 2 or 3 tins high. Oh and by the way, we also had a few cakes to make things interesting. Here is the rundown of the homemade goodness….

Sucka for Packaging

It sucks in New York right now. Dark at 5:30 is a total mind screwball. All the more reason to get a 5pm coffee. Which is exactly what I did. As I waited for my indulgent and spontaneously ordered lemon square, I wondered what was taking an extra minute. New Yorkers are so impatient. Seconds later this box arrived. I was confused and apparently my face gave me away. The barista looked down at the box, then back at me and smiled as he went off to make a grande carmel, mocha, latte, with soy, equal and no foam. Never-the-less. I was amused. I love good packaging. If Starbucks is trying to act more like Apple I love it. No food establishment has yet to beat my UK favorite EAT. Just look at their packaging and design. Simple and lovely. As much as I liked my little Starbucks box I couldn’t help but think of the extra time it takes to box it up, the extra expense for the box, and the cost to store those boxes. This reminds me of one of my favorite packings of all time. The original McDonald’s Yogurt parfait container. It was a flipped soda lid that keep the granola and yogurt separate. Talk about a multitasking, money saving idea. Dear Starbucks, thanks but all that hassle for this little thing seems a touch ineffiecient.

Back For Seconds

I recently went back to Pipi’s in Puerto Vallarta because it’s been a while and it’s just so good. I decided on getting something I have not ordered there before and usually don’t order, the chicken and steak burrito. It was intriguing to have the uncommon combination of chicken and steak together. This was packed to the max with lots of meat, cheese, peppers, little rice (key for me), and lots of sauce as seen above. As I mentioned in my previous post about Pipi’s they make every portion huge. This burrito was no exception. This was not the kind of burrito you pick up with your hands. A fork and knife is mandatory for this meal.

Finally… A Burger With Wine

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 83 | Post-meal (1 hour): 131 | Insulin: 5 Units

I am home for only a few months and I like to see as many of my friends and family as I can before I ship off. I went to go visit my cousins out in Long Island with my mom. It’s been about a year and a half since I had been there and was really excited to see them, meet their chocolate lab (Bella) and see what they have done to their house.

Mom was treating for lunch that day so we were thinking of where to eat before we left the house. There were a lot of choices but my cousin mentioned her favorite burger place in Port Jefferson. Even though I had a burger the night before at BLT Burger my mind was set. If it’s my cousin’s favorite then I had to try it.

Burgers With The Boys

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 95 | Post-meal (1 hour): 149 | Insulin: 5 Units

It was man night and the men wanted to eat burgers! There are hundreds of places to go and eat a good burger in New York City. Jay couldn’t make dinner so the boys left it up to one of the Brothers Tasty to decide on a Burger. One of my personal favorite burgers in the city is at BLT Burger. They just do it right.

Now…, when we were trying to get everyone together lots of emails were going around on who can make it and who can’t make it. For those who could not make it were hazed a bit. It was a very manly night and I was prepared for a lot of testosterone that night. However, somehow the conversation turned to talking about Farmville over milkshakes. WHAT!, where was all the man talk??? We did bounce back to our man hoods eventually and start to talk about old and future bachelor parties. Way better guy talk.

Improved rice krispies?

Really? Did we need to try and improve on this staple food item. Would this mean Snap, Crackle and POP are on steroids? So, it tastes terrible. I was almost excited for the lager krispie but I was totally disappointed when it hit my taste buds…

Feeding the Croc’s in Australia

Darwin Australia was our first port in Australia when we left South East Asia. That day we went to a Crocodylus Park filled with crocodiles. There were croc’s everywhere along with a lot of other animals. I even got to feed a giant Croc. This thing was 18 feet long easy. It missed the food at first and the chomp noise was ridiculous. I also held a baby Croc, it’s mouth was taped so it was not as scary as it sounds. I had so much fun.

Vietnam Home Cookin

My favorite meal I have had so far in South East Asia is from a place called Dac San Hoi An, in Hoi An Vietnam. Hoi An is small little shopping town with a lot of places to eat. Very authentic restaurants all over and great deals for shopping. We hired a taxi for the day and set off to Hoi An for a day of shopping and eating. We didn’t have much time for either because Hoi An is about 40 minutes from the ship. After doing some shopping we came to Dac San Hoi An. There was a prefix menu and no one in the restaurant…

P.I.E. WITH Mike and Mark

It had been a long two months leading up to this meal. Mike and Mark were instrumental in helping me pull off the yodel studio project. They were even more valuable on the ground with me in Mumbai. We had finally just finished the whole project and caught our breath and it was time to celebrate. For our celebratory meal we headed down to Leopold’s in Colaba for a good ex-Pat Indian meal.

Mike is a SO CAL guy, bringing that calm and chill behavior to the crazy world of Mumbai. Mark is a NO CAL guy, also a calm person, but in a different way than SO CAL. If you have ever lived in California you know the difference. My relationship with these guys has only been a short 2 months but in that time we talked a lot about the project details. Mark and Mike thanks for all the help with the studio. Ohh, and Mark, I will be out to take you up on that kayak offer one day.

What we ate:

Chicken Tikka Masala
Tandoori chicken
Lamb Rogan Josh
Garlic naan
Plain Naan

Tea Time in Shanghai

Floating Teahouse, Shanghai China from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

Old Shanghai is quite amazing. The buildings really remind you of the ancient time of China. We heard about the floating teahouse in old town and figured we needed to experience tea time. The Tea House is in the middle of this village and is surrounded by water. There are 4 zig zag walkways that lead to the Teahouse. We ordered a bunch of different tea which were refilled about every 5 minutes. As soon as you take a sip or 2 the waitress comes by with hot water and fills you up. They also gave us a bunch of treats to eat with our tea. The video will show the tea and some of the different treats. The experience was great and the teas were something we had never had before. Deeeelicious!