Before I talk about this beautiful loaf of bread, I have a few updates.

I began my final semester of high school today with mixed emotions. Part of me has loved the time I’ve spent at my wonderful high school, but I am also incredibly excited to begin a new chapter in my life. I’ve been absent from my blog for a variety of reasons—the main ones being that I’ve been busy with school and college applications. Now that the majority of work is behind me, I’m ready for a little rest and time to blog. Since I last posted in October, a lot has changed.

First, meet Darcy, our puppy.

Yes, Darcy is named after the dashing character in Pride and Prejudice, (who my mother and I shamelessly adore) even though she’s a girl. We’re a literary family.

Darcy likes to chew on bottles. She is irresistibly cute.

I also received an acceptance letter from my dream university. This is the best letter I have and probably will ever open. I can’t even begin to explain the happiness I experienced ripping open this envelope.

But now that all the chaos has died down, I decided yesterday that I wanted to make something simple and delicious. Before celiac disease awareness spread, my mom used to have to make her own bread. This recipe is  a soft, savory pumpernickel, the rich brown color of chestnuts. It has a fragrant taste due to caraway seeds and orange peel, and tastes phenomenal alone and when toasted. It stays moist for quite sometime, which is an accomplishment for a gluten-free bread.

I’ve been eating it non-stop for breakfast and lunch, and I believe I’ll be needing to make another loaf soon. I used a bread machine to make this recipe, which was convenient and eliminated a lot of the work required to make homemade bread. My bread machine is bordering on 10-15 years old, but bread machines can be found for about $50 and under. There’s no need to get a $3oo machine with 50 settings. Keep it simple. I recommend investing in one, as you can make a loaf of bread in a day with only about an hour of prep time—something you could do every week to enjoy fresh bread. This bread is worth every penny.

 
Marianne’s Pumpernickel Bread 

Dry Ingredients

1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast

2 cups brown rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup potato starch flour*

1 tablespoon xanthan gum

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup dry milk

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon grated orange peel

Wet Ingredients

3 eggs

3 tablespoons molasses

1 teaspoon vinegar

1 1/2 cups water

3 tablespoons canola oil

*If you cannot find potato starch flour, just use another 1/2 cup of tapioca flour as a replacement.

Directions:
Bake according to your bread machine, but pour the wet ingredients into the machine first, then the dry ingredients. As the machine begins it’s cycle, scrape down the edges of the pan and ensure there are no clumps of flour in the dough. I baked mine on the Basic setting on my machine, which took about 4 hours.

Enjoy!

xoxo,

Juliet

This is me at age seven, in Glacier National Park in Montana.

I’m laughing.
I’m laughing because I have no cares, no fears, only a future full of dreams and possibilities. I’m laughing because the water is freezing, and all I can feel is icy water tickling my numb feet. There’s just something about Montana.

When I was little, Dad would always take me with him wherever he went—Jerry’s Hardware Store, to Blockbuster, even to return books at the library. I would sit in the backseat, swinging my spindly legs against the upholstery, and say,

“Dad! Only ten more years until I can drive!”

“Dad! Only five years until I go to high school!”

“Dad! Only eleven years till I go to college!”

He would give me a knowing smile, saying “I know. Time sure is going quickly.”
But to a seven-year-old whose freedoms consisted of being able to walk the dog around the block, time couldn’t go fast enough. I wanted to drive cars, wear lipstick, go to dances, date boys, change classes.

I turned seventeen seven months ago, and I’m afraid. I’m making some of the biggest decisions of my life. Where I will go to college, what I will become, what I’m going to do with my life. I longed to escape.

This summer, a decade later, my family traveled back to Glacier National Park, Montana.

Whenever I think of the Big Sky state, I remember a quote by Robert Penn Warren from the book “All the King’s Men.”

“For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: “Flee, all is discovered.” It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. “

Montana, especially Glacier National Park, is one of the few untouched parts of nature left in the United States. These days, everywhere you look you see Starbucks, nail salons, Walmarts, grocery stores and shopping malls. Sirens blare, cars honk, lawnmowers roar and teenagers play music in their trucks late into the night. And so we went West for two weeks, to rediscover the earth. To leave all of my responsibilities, appointments and ACT prep classes at home.

Our first day in Montana it rained, so we drove to the North Fork, a remote corner of the park to a small community named Polebridge.

We had read in the guidebooks about the “Polebridge Mercantile”, a bakery/general store with amazing baked goods.

Of course, being celiac, my mom and I were a little jealous and resentful of my dad and little sister.

However.

We walked into the general store and gazed at the wood and glass bakery counter filled with the most delicious-looking treats I have ever seen. Fruit filled pastries, cookies studded with nuts and chocolate, my heart ached with desire. As Mom and I gazed longingly at the cases, my dad took action. He walked towards the back of the general store and asked one of the bakers if they had any gluten free treats.

And out here, literally in The middle of Nowhere, MT, they did. In fact, they had some of the finest gluten-free baked goods I have ever tasted. The young woman my dad had questioned, Sadie, had Celiac disease as well, and so they made gluten-free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, as well as raspberry coffee cake. She and her boyfriend, Wade, had migrated from sunny California to Polebridge, Montana. My mom and I sat at a rustic wood table with plates of steaming coffee cake before us. Our eyes glowed with happiness as we ate the warm, sweet cake dotted with juicy raspberries. We took a dozen peanut butter cookies to go, as well as four more slices of coffee cake.

The cookies were incredible. They were small peanut butter cookies studded with chocolate chips. They tasted less like a traditional cookie and more like a peanut butter-chocolate candy. I vowed to re-create these small masterpieces once I arrived home. One of the best parts of this recipe is that there is no flour in it. No almond flour, no tapioca flour, no flour at all. The cookies I made are slightly different from the Polebridge cookies, but they are delicious nonetheless. Enjoy!

Juliet’s Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup creamy store-bought peanut butter (Jif, Skippy, etc.)
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips
• Extra sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Stir peanut butters together, and then mix in the cup of white sugar until incorporated.
3. Mix in the baking powder and the egg, and then add the vanilla extract.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Pour small amount of sugar onto a plate, and form small balls of cookie dough. Roll the cookies in the sugar until coated, and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
6. Using two fingers, gently press down on the cookies. If you like, you can try the old fork-tine pattern, or leave them as is. However, these cookies do better the smaller that they are, so don’t press them down too hard.

xoxo,

Juliet

Photographs Copyright Juliet Beckstrand 2011

“Could I even get into this college? My GPA is only a 3.6, it’s pretty much in the toilet already.”

“A 27 on my ACT? Forget about it. I’m not going to get into a good college.”

“That C in freshman science will kill me. I’ll never get accepted.”

“I don’t have enough leadership positions. Does my dog-walking job count?”

I’ve heard these statements and many others from friends and other prospective college applicants. My mind was swirling with similar thoughts, doubting and questioning my own accomplishments and statistics. The college presenter looked straight at us, leaning on a stool and holding a coffee mug.

“You are in complete control.” He said.

Yeah right. Me? In control? No way.

A lot of times, I feel like I am completely out of control. Every day teachers tell me what to do, parents tell me where to go, coaches tell me what to change in my tennis serve. Sometimes I feel like a puppet, yanked around by a million strings, controlled by dozens of people. My life can feel like a series of controlled and calculated events. Even though I know I need control to be happy and successful in the long run, I’ve realized that I feel my happiest when I am free from the constraints of my family, friends, teachers, coaches, and mentors. You cannot control the life you are born into. You can’t control whether you are tall or short, have brown eyes or blue eyes, or whether it rains or shines. You especially cannot control if you have Celiac Disease. However, it was that out-of-control feeling the day I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease that inspired me to create this blog.

The only thing you can control is your attitude. One of my grandfather’s favorite prayers was the Serenity Prayer. It goes:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

When explaining Celiac Disease to others, I often mention how I can’t eat wheat, rye, oats, or barley. It appears that I am “controlled” by what I cannot eat. But Celiac has not controlled me. It has given me new beginnings and opportunities. This blog would not exist if I did not have Celiac. I would not have discovered the science and delicate balance of baking without having Celiac. I would not have met amazing people and discovered incredible blogs and websites without Celiac.

I believe that true happiness in life comes from finding the small freedoms, the moments in life in which you can be completely and utterly you. Don’t let life control you. Control how you see life.

I wasn’t a typical kid. As a baby, I loved to watch ceiling fans. When I was a toddler, I refused to play imaginative games, opting instead for entertaining games such as “rearrange plastic fruit on the floor” and “secretary with a broken pocket calculator.” Another one of my anomalies was my indifference to Christmas.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Christmas is wonderful. I live in a place where we always have a white Christmas. We trim our tree with gold ribbon, gifts under the tree are abundant, and stockings are stuffed. However, it was never really my favorite holiday. Perhaps it was because I had a spring birthday, and knew gifts were right around the corner, but I never went crazy over Christmas. In elementary school, whenever we would go around in a circle saying what our favorite holiday was, I would almost always bring up Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. I love Thanksgiving because it is the one time of year I can eat obscene amounts of pumpkin pie, but I love the Fourth of July because I love summer. For almost half a year, I am stuck in a frozen wasteland. I walk to my car in -20 degree temperatures. I own 2 down coats. Every single person I know has a snowblower. The only thing that gets me through those miserable winter days is thinking about summer. I love lemonade, smoothies, short shorts, lakes, bikinis, bright nailpolish, drippy ice-cream cones, everything. Especially the Fourth of July.

Since I was a little kid, my family has gone camping over the Fourth of July. We own an Airstream travel trailer, one of those beautiful silver-bullet trailers. We have traveled the entire United States in this trailer, and we are gearing up for an upcoming 2 week trip to Glacier National Park. Some of my most vivid and indelible memories come from these trips. Once, when I was about 9 years old, we were driving around a town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, trying to find a place to watch fireworks. It was getting late and the fireworks had already started. We finally found a spot on the outskirts of town. My little sister and I climbed up on the top of our truck and sat there, eating Ms. Field cookies (pre-Celiac, of course) and drinking Coca-Cola as the fireworks exploded above us. It seemed like we were so high up, even though we were only on top of a Land Rover. The entire sky glowed. The Fourth of July always meant “summer” to me, and although we are spending this Fourth at home, it is sure to still be magical. In the spirit of the holiday, I adapted a favorite family recipe. My family adores ice-cream, and usually during the winter holiday season, my father makes something he calls “Holiday Pie.” A.K.A, ice cream pie. He layers coffee, chocolate, and vanilla ice cream over a cornflake crust, and it tastes wonderful.

I switched the ice cream flavors around to fit the Fourth of July theme, and I crafted a red, white and blue pie using blueberry ice cream, vanilla, and strawberry. While not a difficult pie to make, it does take some prep time. Each ice cream layer requires re-freezing, so leave some time to make this one. It is crunchy, refreshing, and oh-so-patriotic. I hope you enjoy it.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July!

xoxo,

J

Jace’s Holiday Pie (adapted by Juliet)

Crust:

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. firmly packed brown sugar
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup corn syrup
• 2 1/2 cup gluten free cornflakes, slightly crushed

I love to succeed. The perfect A+ paper, a flawlessly done self-manicure, getting elected as the committee chair—there is nothing like the adrenaline rush of accomplishment. In life, you cannot guarantee that you will succeed, but at some point in your life, you most certainly will fail.

Failure takes many forms. That test you thought you aced? C-. You thought the interview went really well—but the other woman got the job. The cute boy you went out with? He’s not calling you back.

I woke up and decided it was a pie-making day. Pies are not fly-by-night, spontaneous ventures. Pies are plotted and planned. I was ready. I wanted to make the quintessential lemon meringue. Sunny yellow custard topped with fluffy pillows of sugar. I would make the perfect June Cleaver, blue-ribbon pie.

I spent all day on the pie. I had baked the crust, chilled the custard, and browned the meringue. Taking it out of the convection oven, I felt immensely accomplished. It was beautiful. Belonged on the cover of Gourmet magazine. I wiped down the counters, placed the dishes in the washer, and smiled. It chilled in the refrigerator, waiting for dessert time.

The moment had come. The knife glided through the meringue and custard, gently tapping the bottom of the silver tin. I gingerly lifted up the slice.

My beautiful custard leaked from beneath the meringue, creating a watery pool of goop. The fluffy topping was suddenly a thick white raft floating in a yellow ocean. Disgusting. My pie was a failure. A huge, messy failure. I looked at the pie, looked at my mom, and looked back at the pie. I stared at it for a while, frozen over the granite counter. I looked back at mom, and a smile slowly began to spread across her face. So we laughed. We chuckled at my “snot pie.”

You can pretend that you don’t really care. You can say that, in the grand scheme of life, this specific failure doesn’t matter. You can write another paper, flirt with another boy, or apply for a new job. You tell yourself: “I don’t care” or “It’s not a big deal.”

“If you never fail, you never succeed!” I’ve heard this from my parents, teachers, friends, everyone. I don’t buy it. I know that yes, you do have to fail in life, but I don’t believe that it is constantly a necessity. I wish someone would simply be honest.

“Yes. You failed. And that is failure.”

You do care. It does hurt. Accept it. Live in your failure. Examine it, dissect it, analyze it, cry over it. Listen to sad songs. Stick your tongue out when you pass his house. Rip the essay up. Don’t ignore your failure, see it as what it is. A failure. A sticky, messy, yellow failure.

xoxo,

J

Kettle corn and caramel corn had always annoyed me somehow. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with popcorn snacks. The buttery, salty deliciousness of popcorn is tainted by hulls stuck in teeth and gums. When I was introduced to puffcorn, I was introduced to the perfect popcorn. The type of puffcorn used in making this golden snack has no flavoring, it is simply “PUFFCORN”, sold in extra-large bags in the chip section of the grocery store. I bought Old Dutch.

This was a labor-intensive undertaking. even though the instructions seem simple. For making the best kind of caramel puffcorn, I recommend using rubber gloves, at the expense of getting your hands completely coated in caramel goo.

Warning. This is probably the deadliest sweet snack you will ever make. Copious amounts of butter, sugar, and corn syrup. But man, is it good.

So good, in fact, that my entire family had fights over it. I put it in a huge Tupperware tub, and within a few hours, I noticed some missing. And more. And more. By late afternoon, a quarter of the tub was gone. The rest of the day consisted of escalating games of “Who ate it”, and a continually dwindling bucket of puffcorn. This would be great to bring to a party, especially fall/Halloween time. Or in my family’s case, any time. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Oh boy.

Let me start off this review by saying that I hate health food. Not HEALTHY food, necessarily, but health food.

When I used to play basketball (many eons ago), Daddy and I would stop at the local Holiday gas station to pick up a Gatorade and PowerBar before my “tournaments”. I always got the Triple Threat Bar, regardless of the fact that it tasted like compounded, cocoa powder-y mulch. Somehow, logic told me that “Because this tastes bad and is tough to eat, it must do something good for you.”

Regardless, the PowerBar had no effect on my already sub-par basketball skills, and energy bars were forever relegated to the bottomless pits of duffel bags, tennis bags, and backpacks.

However, this tennis season, I got frustrated with the fact that my friends could all eat delicious energy bars, while I had to choke down some lukewarm string cheese after school. There wasn’t really anything I could do about it, other than pretend to like Larabars. I have nothing against them, but somehow I felt tricked by their enticing bar names: “Lemon Pie” “Pecan Pie” “Cherry Pie”. But somehow, they were all just mushed-up dates with lemon zest, bits of pecans, or big raw-ish cherries. Icky.

I’m not going to lie about the fact that I like junk food. I love fresh veggies and dip, strawberries with cold cream, and a big handful of almonds. However, sometimes a girl has to go through the McDonald’s drive-thru and order some fries.

All in all, if I want something healthy, it has to taste really, REALLY good. Deceptively good.

About two weeks ago, my all-knowing mother informed me that Luna Bar was coming out with a gluten free protein bar line. This went over my head, due to my inherent distrust of protein bars, nonetheless gluten-free protein bars. Soon I found myself looking at a box of Luna Protein bars in my pantry. I absentmindedly grabbed one to try, and WOW.

Now, my review might be little limited. There are currently 5 flavors: Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Cookie Dough, and  Chocolate Cherry Almond. I have only tried 3 flavors. (Mint Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Cookie Dough.) The first thing I noticed about these bars was that they looked almost like Snickers bars, about the same size and covered in chocolate. At 170-90 calories, it seemed too good to be true. I bit…and it was wonderful. The texture was great, almost nougat-y. Far and away, my favorite was the Chocolate Peanut Butter. One of my pet peeves about straight-up candy bars was the sickly sweetness (and how sick you feel after eating an entire candy bar…) The Chocolate Peanut Butter tasted like a less-supersweet Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. It was very filling, and served as a great snack.

The Cookie Dough was okay, of course, it didn’t taste like real cookie dough to me. It had a little more of that “powerbar” taste. The Mint Chocolate Chip tasted almost like a bar version of a Girl Scout Thin-Mint. I’m not a huge fan of mint in baked good-type foods, but this still tasted awesome. The next day, I went back to Whole Foods and got 2 boxes of Chocolate Peanut Butter bars…and have eaten almost all of them. I think I need to remind myself that just because they taste AMAZING, they aren’t the BEST thing in the world to eat constantly.

I would easily give these 5 out of 5 stars. Great taste, texture, everything! I’m pretty sure you can get these at most health/large food markets. Happy shopping!

Always in search of a better alternative,

XOXO, Juliet

Note: I was NOT paid or endorsed by Luna Bar to review these products. I was not sent any products by the company, I purchased these with my own money and gave them my honest review.

I hope you have had a wonderful day, full of  gluten-free food and happiness

But did you know that most people who have Celiac Disease are undiagnosed? Imagine the pain and frustration that arises when you have no idea what is going wrong with your body.  Raise Celiac awareness and help spread the word about Celiac testing-it’s only a simple blood test!

Have a great week!

xoxo,

Juliet

I think the first thing I was able to bake by myself was brownies, and I always made a mess. I remember cracking the two eggs and pouring the tablespoon of oil into the bowl, then too quickly dumping the bag of mix, creating a cloud of brownie flour.

My sticky tasting fingers soiled every kitchen surface, much to my mother’s dismay. Every counter, microwace button, oven handle, and spoon was covered in brownie goo. But it was worth it.

They would come out of the oven smelling like chocolate heaven. Even though they were the $2.99 Betty Crocker brownies from the box, they were delicious. For the following years leading up to my Celiac diagnosis, brownies served their standby purpose. I made them for bake sales, basketball games, my little sister’s birthday parties. I never really valued them until they were gone. After my diagnosis, it took awhile for the cravings to emerge, but all of the sudden, I WANTED brownies.

I tried mixes. Countless recipes. About 4 billion types of flour mixes. There was always something off. It was too dense, too cakey, too crumbly, not chocolatey.  Not like a brownie.  This week, I decided I would make the perfect, real tasting, gluten free brownie. It took a few tries, but I found it. Fudgy, but not too rich. On the verge of being a little cakey, but not quite. Chewy edges, soft center, and a crinkly top. As I took them out of the oven, I knew by the look that they were perfect, and they were.

These brownies took a while to make. The melting of the chocolate, the mixing of the flours, beating the eggs and sugar. It made me want to be a kid again, ripping off the top of the box of the brownies and digging in 20 minutes later. I realized that although Celiac has caused me to sacrifice the ease of baking and cooking, it has also taught me the fine art of wonderful cooking and baking.

This recipe is time consuming, but completely worth it. So I would fire up your DVR and get ready to watch some Bachelorette while you wait for these to settle and cook.

Here it is. Chocolate heaven.

The Perfect Gluten-Free Brownie

Ingredients

• 2.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1.5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
• 1 (1/2 cup) stick butter
• 1/4 cup brown rice flour (1.35 ounces)
• 3 tbsp tapioca flour (0.85 ounces)
• 2 tbsp sweet rice flour (0.60 ounces
• 1 tbsp almond meal flour (0.40 ounces)
• 3/4 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and grease an 8 by 8 inch square pan. I highly recommend a metal pan greased with butter. In my experience, I haven’t had good luck with glass pans. Melt together chocolate and butter over low heat in a pot or double boiler.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together flours, xanthan gum and salt.
3. Beat together eggs, sugar and vanilla for 10 minutes at high speed. A stand or hand mixer is definitely the way to go here.
4. Stir in the melted chocolate and flour mixtures until just combined. Let sit, as is (in the bowl), for 20 minutes.
5. Pour into greased pan, tapping on the counter to release air bubbles. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

xoxo,

Juliet

My trip this summer to Italy was absolutely incredible. We traveled from Rome to Florence, and then spent a few days in Umbria, in a tiny town called Gubbio. Overall, every experience was wonderful.

Coming to Italy, I had high expectations for the food. I was also told that being able to eat gluten-free was very easy, due to the large amount of people with Celiac in Italy. Now, what I discovered wasn’t quite good or bad, just unexpected.

Surprisingly, Rome was very difficult to find gluten free food in. We visited a farmacia, or a pharmacy, to pick up some crackers, cookies, etc. Because in Italy, Celiac disease is viewed as a medical condition, almost all pharmacies have some gluten-free items on hand. At the farmacia we visted, there were a few gluten-free items, but the selection was limited. While Celiac was understood at restaurants, (we would say lo sono Celiaca-We have Celiac), the food we received lacked the “wow” factor. Many dishes we would order, such as chicken or beef, tasted like just that, a plain, unseasoned piece of meat. All of the restaurants blur together, none of them really making much of an impression. One highlight of Rome however, was the gelato. Asking if the gelato is gluten free is KEY. Many gelaterias are now adding flour as a thickener in their ice cream, so you must ask Gelato senza farina?, or is the gelato free of flour? One of our favorite gelaterias in Rome was named San Crispino, located about a block away from the Pantheon. The flavors were so rich and intense, it almost real. My favorite combination was cioccolato e lampone, or chocolate and raspberry.

Our next stop was Florence. After a disastrous train ride, we arrived at our apartment. We spoke with our wonderful apartment renter, Lorenzo, asking him about Celiac friendly restaurants nearby. He mentioned that a restaurant across the street, named Ciro’s and Sons made gluten-free pizza. We stopped by for dinner, and found out that this restaurant did not only make gluten free pizza,  but the mother of the restaurateur was Celiac. They had gluten free pizza, pasta, dessert, and everything in between. Over the following week, we continued to come back to Ciro’s almost every day. We became best friends with our amazing waiter Giuseppe, and I ate pizza like crazy. Once again in Florence, with the exception of Ciro’s, it was very difficult to find good gluten free food. Every restaurant we tried was lackluster. The gelato was good there as well, especially at a gelateria next to the Arno river, called Santa Trinita. Their crema gelato was to die for.

Next was Gubbio. We were staying at a small bed and breakfast called Le Cinciallegre. From the moment we arrived the two owners, Fabrizio and Maria Cristina were the kindest hosts in the world. As well as making breakfast, they made dinner as well. Little did we know, not only did they cook these wonderful meals, they grew and raised everything that was put onto the tables. They had an orchard for the fruit, all of the jam and honey was made in their kitchen, they churned their own butter, grew their own vegetables, and raised their own meat. After talking with Maria Cristina, the cook, she hand-crafted custom gluten free meals for us every night. For example, the first night she made as saffron risotto as the prima course, their homemade Italian sausages for secondo, and for dessert, the creamiest panna cotta I have ever tasted. The picture above is of the meal served for secondo the next night, eggplant wrapped ricotta topped with pecorino cheese and tomatoes. Everything was cooked to the utmost perfection. In my entire life, I have never tasted anything more delicious.

I will never forget my trip to Italy  as long as I live.

As the Italians say, it is la dolce vita.