My weekend was awesome, how bout yours? Friday we joined our friends for dinner at the Valle dei Margi agriturismo. It was our first time going, and it was soooo worth it. The restaurant's orchard surroundings were serene, the food was so delicious, and the company was fun. But the food... ah, the food, I can't go on enough about the food. When we first arrived, we were offered fresh grapefruit juice and an assortment of nuts and olives, etc. We stood and enjoyed the sweet and tangy juice and chatted for a bit until the waiter came and took us to our table.

It was a very empty night, Emy says usually Saturday and Sunday are the most packed nights. But it was nice to be able to hear the music, each other's conversation, and the occasional Italian conversations going on the background. At Valle dei Margi, they have a set menu every night. You go, eat what they bring out, and pay, but I hear you never have to worry about not liking something on the menu, and I definitely believe it.

I can't be positive about the order of everything, but I believe we first tasted the vegetables and cheese appetizers. The eggplant was so tasty, the cheese a bit strong, but good, and the bruschetta was awesome. There were artichokes, too, but Tony liked them better than I did; they were soaked in some kind of vinegar maybe? I didn't care for it too much. There was also quiche, and I don't remember what else....

Then the pastas.... Two different kinds. One with sausage and fresh tomato sauce, my goodness it was so good. The other had a mushroom sauce, and was just as delicious. It made me want to keep taking just one more bite, so that I could taste it again....

The meats came out next. One was sort of beef steak that had a somewhat sweet taste; it was interestingly good, definately a new flavor for us. The other was pork with what I think was some kind of cheese inside, and that was also very tasty.

Thankfully I had paced myself perfectly and had just enough room for dessert. A small sweet biscuit cookie thing with cream on top, very sweet and yummy. But then, my favorite, a sort of mini sweet empanada with sweet cream inside, oh it was so delicious. And a bowl of fresh fruit! One type I had never seen before, and it was so good. A mix between a plum and something... or other. I don't know honestly, but it was good. Fresh fruit right from their orchards! How amazing is that!?! And to imagine that we just found out how incredibly close this agriturismo is to our house! After living here for almost a year! Oh my, had we only known earlier..... :) It was a perfect night really, and to top it off, Carlee was very good for the babysitter. How perfect!

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Saturday was awesome for me as well. I got to go with a few moms from our MOMS club to the mall! Etnapolis is one of two malls here *I think there's 2. American style malls are a very new concept here, as I understand it. The cities' economies are still largely based on mom & pop shops, each business having it's own little specialty. So, it was fun to see so many big stores all in one place, like back home. I came home with so many bags, lol. Mostly filled with summer clothes, since for some reason, most of my accumulated wardrobe is for fall or winter. I fell in love with so many tops. The colors are so bright and alive, that just looking at them made me feel happy. So I picked up quite a few of them. :D

We ate lunch at a Mexican style restaraunt. Mexican food cooked Italian. hehe, it was actually pretty good. I got the taco plate, with three different types of tacos (which I have no idea what types they were now that I think of it). But two of them I liked, and one not so much. The hightlight of the meal was dessert. The whole reason we chose this restaraunt over the others: the mango lime icecream. Boy, do the Italians know how to make their icecream! I was in love with this flavor. And when our friend V didn't finish hers, I couldn't let it go to waste. LOL. It was THAT good!

We shopped and chatted and shopped and chatted some more, until finally we headed home around 6! I had so much fun that the day really just flew by. It was so nice to just get out with the girls.

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Sunday was Carlee's birthday party. We got up early in the morning (well early for us on a weekend anyway,) and started the cooking. We had the deviled eggs, the potato salad, and the cake to make, and the decorations to put up. All before 2 pm. So we got to work.

Everything was going well, until the cake. I had found a new recipe for frosting online, since I didn't want to use the Wilton's recipe anymore, because of the shortening. Yuck. The first batch I made came out the right conistency for decorating, but I was going to do the outline first, so I thinned it out a little bit. Well, I ended up, not using all of it for the outline, and since I felt pressed for time, I didn't want to make another batch just to be able to do the stars. So, instead I just colored it and used it for the coloring in part also. So, there were no stars on the Dora cake, except for her hair, which I used premade icing since there was no way I was going to be able to make my white icing black. In the end, even after the cake breaking in half while I tried getting it out of the pan (before icing it), the cake came out okay. Not my best, but Carlee knew who it was, and that's what mattered. :D Plus, just knowing that there was no trans fat in the icing was nice.

The box cake however had me mad. I never thought to check the box cake for the hydrogenated oil. I mean, why would they need to put it in the box cake? I don't get it. But they do. For the whole cake - 12 grams of trans fat. How awesome is that? Needless to say, I will never make another box cake again. I will be making my own from now on.

Carlee had a blast though and loved eating all the icing off her cake. And I let her. She played with all of her friends. She opened her presents, they played with play dough, and at the end got to blow bubbles and take rides in her new wagon outside. After everying was said and done, I really felt we gave her a fun party. Which I was a bit nervous about, since it was our first real kid's party for Carlee.

I can't wait until next year, when she has more of an idea of what's going on. Even when we sang her happy birthday, she had this bewildered look on her face, like, "What the hell is going on?" lol Thanks to everyone who sent or gave her presents, she is really having fun with all of them. She made out like a bandit this year.

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The only part that sucked this weekend was last night... While we were playing with Carlee in her new tent (set up in the dining room) I looked outside the back window, and not realizing how much hair the cats have gotten on the drapes, took in a face full of it. In that second, I knew I was in for a world of hurt... and in about 5 minutes after getting out of the tent, it hit. Last night was miserable. I immediately took my allergy medicine and my sinus medicine and hoped it would take care of it quickly. It didn't. My head felt like it was going to explode, and I was sneezing every few seconds it felt like, and Tony laughed at my two piles of tissues, one one each side of me on the couch. Gross. I don't feel as bad as last night, but I'm still not completely through this episode yet.

And now back to our normal hectic schedule. I gotta cram for my next geology test due this week, a lab (with about 7 parts to it) is due this week, Carlee's doctor's appointment is tomorrow, and Tony doesn't get a day off this week. So the upcoming week is busy for us, but this past weekend made up for it already.

Labels: cake decorating, carlee, food, italy, shopping

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