bernardo says

10 Things I Did on 10/10/10

1. Made caramel.
2. Started Jay Cutler on one of my fantasy football teams. (For those of you who don't follow football, Cutler didn't play today due to injury. This was very bad for my fantasy team.)
3. Congratulated my brother for running a half marathon.
4. Went food shopping.
5. Watched The Simpsons with the Banksy opening couch gag.
6. Used my panini press. Twice.
7. Watered the plants.
8. Read the Sunday paper.
9. Sat on my balcony and drank a Sam Adams Octoberfest.
10. Fed a friend's cats.

Food A-Z

Arancini

Basil

Corn on the cob

Donuts

Edamame

French fries/toast

Goat cheese

Hamburger

Ice cream

Juice

Kabob

Lobster

Mozzarella 

Nutella

Orange

Pizza

Quail

Risotto

Scali bread

Tiramisu 

Udon

Veal 

Watermelon

Xtra cheese

Yams

Ziti

These are the first things that came to mind. If you have a problem with the X (or anything else), you can discuss it with me over food.

How To Cut A Pineapple

Enjoy pineapples? Then you need this. This is how to cut a pineapple. I understand sometimes you want to quarter a pineapple and serve it with the skin as a serving platter under the slices but every other time you cut a pineapple, use this slicer. It cuts through the pineapple with such ease and lack of difficulty. It's amazing. Added bonus: you can use the cored pineapple as a drink glass or a fruit bowl. I'm now going to eat at least one pineapple a week now. Buy it here for about 15 bucks.

Some Pictures From Italy

Here are a few pictures from the Italy trip. A bunch more are on my facebook page and even more on my flickr. (link coming soon)

 

 

 

 

My grandfather grew up in this one room house.

 

Abruzzo getting ready for The Pope.

 

 

This pizza was amazing.

 

zoom zoom polizia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mother was born in this house.

 

YouTube. YouParfum.

 

 

prosciutto pizza looks better than pacman.

 

Firenze

 

Freedom comes when you learn to let go. Creation comes when you learn to say no. - Madonna

 

 

 

                         

 
 
  

Italia

Recently, I took a two week vacation to Italy (with a few days in Boston). To say that the trip was absolutely amazing would be an understatement. Both in Italy and in Boston, I spent time with great people, ate incredible foods and saw so many postcard worthy things. I have an amazing family and amazing friends and I am so so thankful. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that there aren't any positive adjectives that can convey how awesome everything was. 

Italy:

• Rome to Sulmona, Abruzzo to Florence. 
• I saw the house that my mother was born in. 
• I saw the one room "house" where my grandfather grew up. 
• I met lots of relatives/people in the town where my grandparents were from.
• I met Benny Francoise, who used to be a chef with my Dad in Boston. Now, Benny lives in Italy and sells garlic and olive oil for a living. He has 400 olive oil trees...if you want to buy his olive oil, you need to let him know how much you want months in advance. When it's time, you show up with cash and your own containers. He doesn't package it and he doesn't ship it. My Dad asked him if he misses Boston/working as a chef. Benny said, (paraphrasing) "No, I don't. But I would like to have one more busy Saturday night back in the kitchen with everyone. That would be fun." When he said this I pictured a slammed small kitchen with everyone working at a frantically fast pace, but with movements so precise that they resembled a smoothly moving machine. With Italian opera playing.
• I had huge incredible dinners without any menus being opened.
• The food. Oh, the food. (I wish more restaurants here offered pineapple & watermelon after meals.)
• Great conversation and quotes with my family.
• Club Space.
• Lots of walking and steps.
• Connecting flights. Missed flights. 

I didn't want to leave. I want to go back. It's one thing to go on a vacation and have the memories and pictures. It's another thing when that vacation affects how you look at life. The 3rd annual DiGirolamo summer vacation gave me memories, pictures and a new perspective. 

Food Links

• 2nd Annual Create Dunkin's Next Donut Contest - I love this. Love it. I want to eat every donut that I create and drink Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

• Meat Mat - I originally found these on Gourmet's blog. They're floor mats/rugs that look like salami, mortadella, bierschinken and blutwurst (blood sausage). Like Buscemi, I want to open up a sandwich shop and have these in it.

• Walmart Food - Corby Krummer compares the produce sections at Walmart to Whole Foods. This is really interesting. Also interesting: how Corby says "produce."

• Perfect Bacon - How to make perfect bacon in the oven. Homer Simpson loves bacon.

• 99 Things to Eat in Los Angeles Before You Die - This is a list of 99 things to eat in LA before you die by Jonathan Gold. Time for me to start crossing things off the list.

Super Bowl 44 Party

You know, the one where Peyton Manning threw a pick 6 and the Saints beat the Colts. Yeah, that one. We had a chili cook-off. My bacon & beef chili with fried potato cubes, cheddar cheese and a mini jalapeno corn muffin tied for 2nd place. We ate and drank very well.

3 Links

• All Gone Book - Every year since 2006, All Gone has put the best "street culture items" of the year in a book. Some pretty dope stuff. You can check out the digital versions and buy the 2009 book on their site...but hurry up, before they're all gone. (I had to.)

• Ben & Jerry's flavor graveyard - I find this amazing interesting. I want to try about 87% of these flavors. For a straight up list, check the wiki BJ discontinued flavor list.
  

• In The Rain mixtape by Dj Steve1der - All rain tracks by everyone from The Dramatics to Biggie to Raekwon to Michael Jackson to Bill Withers to Prince.

DJ Khaled McDonald's commercials.

I just came across these DJ Khaled McDonald's commercials and they are outstanding. So many great lines. I want more Khaled commercials. Think about it...what Khaled commercial wouldn't be entertaining?

Paperclips - These paperclips the best! They BENDY! But not TOO BENDY! BUT they're STURDY TOO! BENDY AND STURDY! And they way they hold your papers together! Aw man! I used them jumbo paperclips on MY MONEY!

Sporks - Let me tell you about SPORKS! IT'S A SPOON AND A FORK! You can EAT ANYTHING WITH THESE!

Sucrets - Tell me it wouldn't be awesome to hear DJ Khaled yell "sucrets" and "lozenges."

(Talking about a McCafe Hot Chocolate) "...and then you take a sip and that whip (whop) creams on your face and even hits your nose. You don't even get mad! You don't even wipe it off! Cause you immediately go back in for more hot chocolate."

This one has two commercials. Make sure you listen to both.

(Talking about the McDonald's Dollar Menu) "You heard me last time - that double cheeseburger, like I said, when I take a bite, I look at it and I see a lot more bites left. And it's only for a dollar. Now the chicken nuggets with that barbecue sauce. I don't know about you but I know about me - I put two or three in my mouth immediately and start eating them like crazy. And you know what I do? I go back in my pocket, I more more nuggets! And I get another double cheeseburger! You wanna know why? Because it's a recession out there and I love food and it's only for a dollar!"

I Enjoy Getting Food in the Mail

Over the past week, I got two care packages in the mail. Both contained food. 

My parents sent me apple cider donuts, Boston newspapers sports sections, chestnuts, a birthday card, New England fall foliage (seriously; they sent me leaves), a sonic toothbrush and a slinky. It's like the tastes, smells ans sights of autumn in a box. Love it.

Jessie on the other hand sent me dulce de leche from Argentina. And lots of it. If you don't know, dulce de leche translates into ohmygawdthisstuff is ludicrouslyamazing. 

Lets start with this cone shaped candy, Havanna Havannets. (Read more about it in this NY Times article on dulce de leche.) Basically it's a milk chocolate cone filled with dulce de leche. I started at the point and didn't know there was a cookie at the bottom. Let me put it like this: if I gave these out as Halloween candy, kids and parents would be googling "havanna havannets candy" before the got to the cookie. Once you eat this, you want more.

Ohhhhh Yes. Now, I'm not a huge fan of regular Oreo cookies: too much chocolate. If I eat them, I'll split them and only eat the half of the cookie that has most of the "cream" filling with a glass of milk. Well, these dulce de leche Oreos are a different story. I eat them whole and I eat them with great pleasure. I'm starting to think that dulce de leche makes everything better.

Alfajores Jorgito. Guess what this is! Dulce de leche chocolate cookie! Guess what else it is! Amazing! On another note, the kid on the package looks like he's up to something.

And a jar of dulce de leche made by Veronica. I want to eat this with bananas, pecans, crepes, and ice cream. Lucky for me I found AmigoFoods.com, which is "Your Latin food store on the internet!" and they carry lots of authentic Argentine food including 17 dulce de leche products including this Veronica jar. As if I needed another reason why I should be running more.

Dulce de leche is Nutella's sister. I have yet to have them together...be right back. Ok. Dulce de leche and Nutella is a food orgry that I recommend to everyone with a mouth.

And oh, something that's not dulce de leche but still shocking and great. Lays "lomo con cebolla caramelizada" potato chips. That's tenderloin with caramelized onion potato chips. I was excited to see what these taste like...and then I was excited to eat more. I really like them. Other flavors: parmesano ahumado con hierbas (smoked paramsean & herbs) and pechuga de pollo al limon con hierbas (lemon chicken breast with herbs). These are potato chip flavors people. I want these sold in the US.

Here are some Lays Resto commercials, done by BBDO.