It's National Pasta Day!

October 17, 2016 - Elisa's Birthday Celebration, National Pasta Day AND upcoming events

10/16/2016

Elisa's Daily Scoop
NEXT TRIP DEPARTS IN: NOT SURE YET

A Year Older & Still Lovin' Pasta

I'M BACK - AND A YEAR OLDER LOL

I have to thank Tanya for the absolutely lovely tribute on our blog yesterday for my birthday.

The pics she posted from our "Birthday" trip, that is, our European Rail Trip last year brought back some of the sweetest memories!

Yes Cuz - we need to get another birthday trip on the calendar.

Actually, we have one semi-planned for June-July 2018 to....CROATIA. But, more about that in the coming weeks!!

Celebrating my birthday with my beloved girls at Spuntino Wine Bar & Italian Tapas (c)travelincousins.com

As for me, my day yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind of meals and get togethers. And what a glorious weather day it was to celebrate my birthday and be with family!!

The day was a bit crazy from the get-go because it happened to be my nephew and Godson, Nolan's Confirmation day. As a result, I knew in advance that there would be a family dinner celebration on the eve of my birthday, so I couldn't make big plans for the day.

So, I decided to book a brunch for me, my girls and my parents. Sis, Danielle would not be able to join since she would be getting ready for Nolan's Confirmation.

Everything was all planned, but then I decided that since it's a rare occasion that I get to sleep in, I would "cancel" brunch and just make it a pj kind of day until I needed to leave for Nolan's dinner.

As a result, I told my parents the plans were off and cancelled my brunch reservations.

When morning came, I was relieved I didn't have to get up for an 11:30 reservation, but at around 10:30 the kids and I decided we really did want to go and so I was fortunate enough to get a table for 1:30 at Spuntino Wine Bar & Italia Tapas in Garden City - the place I had originally planned to eat.

I didn't want to drive my parents crazy (who were both getting over the flu) so I didn't "re-invite" them, knowing I'd see them later in the evening.

Great place for happy hour, brunch or just a great meal with friends!! (c)travelincousins.com

This is the third time I've indulged my taste buds at this unique restaurant. However, it was the first for me with my daughters and to try out their brunch menu.

I had been literally drooling over the offerings for brunch for the past month or so and managed to get Gianna and Kelsey stoked as well.

Fortunately, it is possible to order off of both the brunch menu and the regular menu, so we gals selected items from both for a pretty amazing mid-day feast yesterday.

RASPBERRY LIMONATA (Front) and BERRY PUNCH (Back) (c)travelincousins.com

SPUNTINO FRENCH TOAST (c)travelincousins.com

SOFT SCRAMBLED BRUSCHETTA (c)travelincousins.com

MARGHERITA PIZZE (c)travelincousins.com

GNOCCO FRITTO (c)travelincousins.com)

Drinks were the first order of business and I ordered the RASPBERRY LIMONATA made with
Raspberry purée, lemon juice, honey simple syrup, and a lemon wheel; while the girls chose the BERRY PUNCH comprised of Strawberry purée, pineapple juice, ginger ale, fresh strawberry with a lemon wedge.

Unfortunately, Kelsey was not crazy about her Berry Punch, preferring my Raspberry Limonata and so we played musical drinks - I gave her mine, and she gave Gianna a second Berry Punch (which Gianna loved) and I ordered another Raspberry Limonata for moi since I was enjoying it until my little munchkin decided she liked it.

Food-wise, it was like being in a wonderland and since we couldn't really decide on one specific thing each, we decided to order a bunch and share - which was pretty much our original plan when we viewed the menu in advance.

Here's what we ordered:
SPUNTINO FRENCH TOAST
French toast dipped and cooked in maple syrup with fresh strawberries
(The kids dug into this so fast I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the platter)

SOFT SCRAMBLED BRUSCHETTA
Fresh herbed scrambled eggs, mascarpone cheese, toasted crostini with North Country Smokehouse bacon and mixed green salad (we ordered it without the bacon)

ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH BRUSCHETTA
Roasted butternut squash, eggplant, Granny Smith apple with ricotta cheese, caramelized onions and toasted garlic.

MARGHERITA PIZZE
Fresh mozzarella, San Marzano tomato
sauce and basil

GNOCCO FRITTO
Fried homemade dough, Prosciutto di Parma, rosemary, Maldon sea salt, extra virgin olive oil

Gianna - mid-bite (c)travelincousins.com

Birthday Selfie (c)travelincousins.com

To say the least we were stuffed!! Both girls agreed we were DEFINITELY coming back for many more meals here!!

Have I told you how much I love that my kids are foodies like their mom?!!!

In spite of how much we ingested, we were still inspired to find a bit of room left to walk over to Chocolate Works and Carlo's Bakery for a few goodies to bring home.

(c)travelincousins.com

Kelsey made me the most adorable card as well, which totally made my day!

KELSEY'S HOME MADE CARD FOR ME! (c)travelincousins.com

My birthday brunch was finished off with the most delicious cupcake from Carlo's bakery. Red Velvet with cream cheese frosting!!

Red Velvet Cupcake (c)travelincousins.com

We had just enough time to get back home, feed Punkin, and for Gianna to complete a few homework assignments and then we were off again for another meal to celebrate Nolan's Confirmation.

The Confirmation boy (wearing his bow tie!) (c)travelincousins.com

Me and my Godson, Nolan (c)travelincousins.com

Me and Dad (c)travelincousins.com

Kelsey and her favorite aunt and Godmother, Danielle (c)travelincousins.com

Grandpa and his Gianna (c)travelincousins.com

I was tempted to let my Scoop end there but I couldn't let it go without wishing you a
Happy National Pasta Day since it is my ALL TIME FAVORITE FOOD!!!

There are over 350 varieties of dried pasta in Italy. The highest quality of dried pasta is made with pure durum semolina flour and water.

Did you know that a typical Italian person eats over sixty pounds of pasta per year?

In comparison, Americans only eat around twenty pounds of pasta per person per year!
Well, clearly, not this American of Italian descent!

A little pasta history...Although pasta is typically thought of as an Italian dish, there is evidence that people living in Asia in 2000 BC made noodles with millet!

Hope you enjoy your day folks!!

- E
xoxo

Tanya's Daily Scoop
NEXT TRIP DEPARTS IN: 5 DAYS

What the next several weeks look like..

Heya everyone!

Welcome back. And welcome to a brand new week!

So much going on in the next several weeks, it is definitely the busiest time of the year.

And my girly's birthday (last Friday) is always the kick off to our festivities!

Obviously Halloween is next up on the calendar of festivities. Do you have plans of dressing up?

You should know that I do...but I will wait to tell you what I am going as. Can you guess?

And even before Halloween, I've got one more trip planned!!!
I'll be heading up to Mendocino - it's just lovely there. But I'll tell ya more about this tomorrow on Travelin' Tuesday!

Mendocino, CA (c)travelincousins.com

After Halloween, we are our rescheduled camping trip to Big Sur - and sis Jet, Andrew, and Chaplin have committed to coming!!! More on this to come!

At this point we will already be into November and following Big Sur, we are going to take the kids to Catalina Island for their first ever visit!

Catalina Island (c)travelincousins.com

2 days after Catalina, we will do a road trip to Sedona & Scottsdale, Arizona.

Sedona, AZ (c)travelincousins.com

Then of course we have Thanksgiving, Dominic's birthday (18th OMG), St. Nicholas Day, and all of the Christmas prep, parties, performances, etc...
I've left the calendar pretty bare for trips in December...but if we happen to have an open weekend - you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be jumping on plans to get away over that time frame. But we shall see what happens.
Usually the kids have so many performances in December that is can be difficult to take a little vacation. I'll keep you posted for sure.

Trips after that are taking place in 2017. A new year and a new calendar of trips to go on!! Of course the winter as per usual will be full of winter wonderlands and ski trips for us.

Now have you noticed all the food and family fun that Elisa had on her birthday???
Be sure to take a looksie over on her side and check it out!

I on the other hand, went shopping!! And I'm definitely not complaining. For starters we went over to Urban Outfitters. They were having a dress sale and I already had plans of picking up a dress I saw over there that I liked. So of course I wanted to take advantage of the sale.

I couldn't find another picture of this dress. lol (c)travelincousins.com

urbanoutfitters.com

We walked out of there with 2 dresses, and some hunger pangs...So our next stop was to try out Gratitude - a fairly new vegan restaurant in Newport Beach.
What a great space, I almost couldn't believe that we were in Orange County!
And the menu was outstanding - so much to choose from and everything that we tried was DELISH.

We will definitely be going back to this restaurant. Now you might be wondering why didn't I bring the kiddos along with us?
Well the only reason was that our next stop was to actually do some Christmas shopping for them and so of course I couldn't have them in tow.
But after the Christmas shopping was checked off of my list, we went back to pick Cosette up and take her to the stables to see Dream.

Today after getting things done around here, I've gotta fill up the fridge and cabinets. I hope to have time to go to the gym, the kids are back at choir rehearsal, I have a board meeting, and then we have a Pizza Party Fundraiser.

And as mentioned above today in National Pasta Day and I sure do LOVE my pasta!
We all do. I don't think you can be Italian and not love pasta!

Here are my all time favorite pastas:

In the Dry Category:

Fusilli Lunghi Bucati originating from Campania