Let's eat!

I may not be a foodie but I got a chance to eat pretty well last October.  My friends make fun of me that I never have an appetite for anything.  I rather have a good drink than to have a big meal.  That's because I usually watch what I eat and exercise regularly.  But there are occasions when I find myself out and about trying new things.

My boss wanted to surprise one of our coworkers to a lunch for her upcoming wedding.  She chose the Ralph Lauren restaurant on Chicago avenue.  I was excited to check it out because I've never been.  We made reservations and noticed how full the place was.  Luckily we got our table and ordered a way!  RL is beautifully decorated in Ralph Lauren fashion.  There were sections that looked like a library and then there were sections that reminded me of a horse stable.  There are tons of pictures hanging; some are photographs of old Hollywood actors and  some are of Chicago's iconic skyscrapers.  I missed the feeling of being back in time.  Our city has had our share of up and coming restaurants with a new age/ fusion twist.  It was nice to be in a luxurious country club-style restaurant and enjoy some traditional American food.  By the way, my club sandwich was to die for!  I will say I was pretty envious of their monogram RL coffee cups with matching saucers.

That same week I had dinner in Avec restaurant on Randolph street.  If you head over to this trendy neighborhood, you'll see a string of restaurants back to back.  I haven't been in that area in a while.  It was nice to enjoy a night out in the city.  This tapas restaurant was delish!  I enjoyed the dishes very much and would highly recommend it for a date night out.  

Afterwards we wanted to have some cocktails.  I was curious to see the new Loews hotel, so we headed down there.  We ended up catching the World Series game there.  I loved the lobby bar and even though I'm not a sports fan, had a great time there with the fellow spectators!  Congratulations Kansas!  That was an awesome game!
Tonight me and my family will be celebrating Christmas Eve.  I'm excited to see my mom.  I bought her a vintage brooch and I hope she likes it!  I will let you guys know.  As for everyone out there, please have a safe holiday and enjoy the time spent with family and friends.  If you are spending it alone, there's plenty of Christmas specials on tv as well as blockbuster movies out (hint: Star Wars) for your viewing pleasure.  I'm single so I know how it feels to be alone sometimes.  It's moments like these you go out and try to enjoy your holiday regardless of your circumstance.  Not everyone has it so easy.  No matter how down and out you feel, remember Life has a way of reminding you how blessed you are!  Live life to the fullest!!  And Merry Christmas!!!!!!

 

Check out that mirror!  Loved the décor in RL restaurant!

I cannot find these anywhere, but I need them in my life!



The best club sandwich I've ever had, hands down!

Cheese spread in Avec....

A bottle of pinot to go with our dinner...

I love healthy dishes like this Trout we shared. 

Kale salad with shrimp!  SOOOOOO good!

What I wore to Avec and Loews hotel.  I chose an off the shoulder sweater with bootcut jeans.  Pretty basic since I didn't know where we were heading to.

The calm before the storm...

Back in September, I spent the first part in Italy, and the rest of the month attending birthday parties.  Lol.  Once October came around, things had slowed down a bit.  I'm glad it did.  Sometimes you want to be able to stop and smell the roses.  I got a chance to finish a new self-help book, as well as focus on trying to get my apartment ready for the winter (if it ever shows up).  It took forever, but I finally found a picture I could hang over my couch in the living room.  After countless hours spent surfing the net, I narrowed it down to one.  I'm glad how it turned out too.  I knew I wanted something abstract.  From that point it was just a matter of finding the one I liked to go with my décor.  It was an interesting process, because it's so time consuming.  I didn't want to settle for any old picture!  And that's how it should be!  The last thing I wanted to do was to have something hang on my wall for the sake of covering up my wall.  It's easy to get "stuck" with things, but you should have some passion behind the madness.
Regardless, the first weekend in October was pretty chilled out.  Me and my friends from time to time like to have mass group textes to see how we're doing.  Since so many events are happening in everyone's lives, it's a nice way to catch up to one another.  Our friend from the bridal shower at the Drake hotel invited us to come over and check out her new apartment.  She moved back in the city at the end of the summer and is also in the process of planning a wedding.  We drove down to Downer's Grove for a light dinner party.  She cooked with one of her presents from the shower:  a brand new Williams Sonoma iron skillet!  We had a good time catching up.  It was nice not to do anything too crazy. 

I love my birthday scarf!  I wore it for the dinner party.

I wore it with my cotton twill moto jacket.  The weather was changing around this time.  We had light rain/ mist and crisp weather.  Wasn't "cold" yet.

One of her bridal shower gifts.  She bought some cheese and crackers for appetizers. 

Magiano's has a nice spread!

Good times hanging out with the ladies!

The following weekend things DID get a little crazy (but that's my life, you know?).  The funny thing about those nights, they're unexpected.  You can never plan for those, but remember, anything is possible in this city.  I saw on Facebook that one of my favorite spots in the city was closing down.  Japonais!  Definitely one of the best restaurants in Chicago for sushi.  But over the years, with it's massive space, was getting harder and harder to fill up.  There are always new places opening up in the city.  And with Chicago's fickle crowd, you can never tell which ones will bring the patrons back.  Japonais was around for over 10 years, which is a huge accomplishment!  The fact that it lasted so long is impressive in my eyes.  Plus, with it's dock area patio, boats would sail up and park for a quick bite to eat.

I headed down to Public House and met up with some friends who were watching the Cubs game.  At this point, there was hope we could make it to the world series.  But my friends were done for the evening.  That's when I decided to head down to Japonais for their closing party by myself to see who I would run into.  Since I use to go there regularly 10 years ago, I figured I'll run into some familiar faces.  Did I ever!!  I was glad I saw my old friends I use to party with back in the day.  We had some good times.  We decided to go out and make a night of it since we haven't hungout with one another in sooooooooooo long.  We jumped around to Parliament, then ended the night in Cuvee.  I had a blast!  For a spilt second I felt I traveled back into time.  I miss that feeling... 

Missed these guys!!

At Japonais for their closing party.

Headed over to Parliament and met up with some more friends...

Getting silly at Cuvée

What a loooooong night!!  Peace out!

Holiday Blues...

I hope everyone had a great holiday!  It was just me and my brothers over my mom's place on Thanksgiving.  We kept it small this year.  My mom was pretty emotional.  I know she misses her husband very much.  It took me a second to realize so much stuff happened this year.  Looking back at my trip to Paris and Italy, I feel I was blessed to have recognized the beauty of both these 2 countries.  Now the state of the world is in constant threat of terrorism.  It doesn't even feel like Christmas is coming.  We shouldn't be feeling anxiety and anguish.  We should be joyful and grateful for everything we have.  Why does it have to be like this?
Since the Paris attacks, our country has suffered domestic terrorism as well.  Last week it was at a Planned Parenthood, today it was at a social services location in California.  I cannot help but feel I am living in a world that is not familiar to me anymore.  Maybe this type of thing has been around and I never noticed, or maybe I'm just getting older.  No matter how you look at it, I'm beat.
I pray that we can learn of ways to control our issues, anger, depression, etc.  Instilling fear in others is not going to solve anything.  Maybe we could learn from others on how to handle life's demanding tasks?  Follow their lead to living a healthy, promising life?  I know everyday I try to better myself and my thinking because it would hurt me to know that I make people miserable.  As funny as it sounds, it's true!  It's one of my insecurities!
Since I've been blogging, (and trying to catch up to my events), I've learned to appreciate the past.  I realize how far I've come to my personal journey in life.  Depression is my kryptonite, but I try my best to handle my situations so I could be stronger in moving ahead and not getting "stuck" in a unhealthy zone.  It's hard especially when the news have been nothing but tragic lately.  I suggest everyone "tune out" from time to time, and get away from the madness, even if it's as simple as not watching the news or logging into Facebook (or any social media) for a week.  I think it might do us all good for a change.  Let's face it, all we're doing is passing and sharing horrible things that have happened and it's not making the world a better place.  It's making the world a feared place.
Back in recapping my trip.  I left off me and my friend driving back to town from Sorrento.  My friend had an appointment in the morning, so we figured we'll keep it local that Thursday.  We ran some errands, went to the beach for an hour to work on our Italian tans, and made our way to our favorite gelato spot!  Looking back, it was a nice change to the hustle and bustle of trying to catch a ferry somewhere.  We slowed down to smell the roses and it was nice. 
My friend decided to throw another dinner party.  I helped out setting the table.  We enjoyed pasta di vongole.  It was delish.  It was nice.  Very relaxing vibes.  I miss it so much now.

I got the recipe from my friend.  Hopefully it will turn out like hers...

The next day my friend decided we should checkout some caves before I fly out.  It was now Friday, but I had to catch a train out late Saturday to Rome to catch my flight on Sunday.  Yup.  My trip was ending and we now had limited time with one another.       
 We drove back out to Bari to see the Grotte di Castellana.  These caves were formed over 90 million years ago, and is one of the natural wonders in Puglia!  There were people from all over the world visiting that day.  Luckily, we had the opportunity to catch the English tour.  We went deep into the caves for close to two hours.  It was pretty cold down there!  Considering the temps were in the 90s, the temperature inside the caves dropped down to 55 degrees!  We did bundle up since my friend warned me how cold it can get.  I learned so much that day.  Unfortunately they do not allow pictures to be taken, but I did sneak in a few at the entrance.  I enjoyed the tour very much and would highly recommend it.  You'll never think Italy has something like this!

The opening of the cave!  Once described as the entrance to hell since it's so deep down below sea level...

The calcifications from conformations are amazing!

Gorgeous colors throughout the caves!

My only selfie.  No more pictures could be taken as the tour continued...





A Saturday Night Dinner Party...

Since my friend got drunk at the BIG PARTY, she had a terrible hangover the next day.  I was tired myself from being out all night.  We bummed around the house til we started to feel better.  That wasn't into later in the afternoon, around 5pm.  My friend wanted to keep it low key that night, so she suggested cooking a big dinner.  She invited some friends to come by, and they all agreed!  It was a nice change of pace from the night before.  She made some eggplant parmesan which was delish.  Since she knew I'm not a cook at all, she had me prepare some of it so I could learn.  I hope mine turns out as well as hers!  Everyone loved it!  We stayed up past midnight talking and had a lot of laughs.  As awkward as it sounds, sometimes things do get lost in translation, and it comes out funny if anything.  At this point, I can understand Italian about 50% of the time, compared to nothing at all when I visited last year.  I've been taking up lessons on my own, but I need to be consistent.  I want to keep learning so the next time I come I can be more fluent.  The part that's hard for me is to speak it back to someone.  I'm hopeful that I will be able to learn this language without sounding bad.  The next day we had some good sleep and decided to drive to a nearby town, Matera.  This town was one of the locations where the Passion of Christ was filmed, and I can understand why!  Everything looks preserved from the biblical times.  Beautiful stone homes and scenic views.  I felt closer to God there.  It was scorching that day too!  We walked a lot and decided to squeeze in another town nearby before we headed back home.  We drove to Altamura and did some window shopping.  It was an awkward day in general, for me and my friend started to argue about stuff.  It's hard when no one is wrong.  As any relationship goes, there comes a time when no one is right.  Looking back, I'm glad we put this behind us.  I love her too much to argue over something that is beyond our control... 
We ended up passing by Bari before we drove into town.  Since Bari is a metropolitan town, we checked out the Mac Store for some makeup.  My friend cannot find this stuff in her town.  She has to make a trip out here in order to get her products.  We made up that night.  We decided to checkout Napoli the next day.  We needed some more adventure for our trip!

The dinner table is ready for the evening!

Adding the layers to our eggplant parmesan...

Beautiful Matera!

An attempted selfie.  At this point you can see the tension in my face...

Sassi di Matera

No pics allowed but I did sneak this one in...

Window shopping in Altamura...

The central church in Altamura...

An evening in Bari made everything better...

A Night to Remember...

In the morning we got up early to checkout.  Since the weather has been all over the place, we were constantly checking our phones for the forecast to see if any rain was heading our way.  We were surprised by last night's showers and that pretty much ruined our chances for stepping out.  Since we had a 3 hour drive back home, we figured we can still have a chance to see what Lecce was all about. We had our morning espresso and a mini pound cake treat for breakfast and wandered around for some souvenirs.  I really wanted some leather goods, but unfortunately it was not in season in Lecce. So much for that.  We walked around some more and ran into a leather shop.  A man was busy putting together a bag but stopped to help us find what we were looking for.  He made everything by hand, and the leather fabrics in his showroom were gorgeous.  If we had enough time he would have made me a brand new bag to my liking, but I was pleased with the one I found in his shop. He was a true gentleman and I've been wearing my new purse ever since.

We decided to head back to town, but first my friend asked me if I would like to see a castle.  It was in the town called Andria and nearby her hometown.  I figured why not since we could knock out another distinctive castle out the way.  This one was HUGE!!  The Castel Del Monte was built near Bari in the 13th century by the Emperor Frederick II.  His policy in Italy, unlike that in Germany, where he encouraged the feudal system, was that of an absolute monarch. For this reason, and also for defensive purposes, he built a number of strong castles in his lands of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, the largest and most influential of which was Castel del Monte.  ("Castel Del Monte". unesco.org.)  I was blown away by the size and of it's octogon shape.  We drove up to a parking lot to park our car and then hopped on a bus which took us to the hillside of the castle.  I noticed the storm clouds reeling in, and because of it's low altitude, we decided to skip the inside tour and just take pictures outside.  It started to get gusty up there so we made our way back to the bus which took us back to our car. 
During that time we were checking out the castle, my friend recieved a phone call from her boyfriend.  He wanted to hold a wine tasting for his friends who brought bottles from nothern Italy.  They decided to hold the tasting back at the house instead of going to a restaurant, and that's when panic struck.  She would have to cook a feast for 10 and we still were an hour away from home.  Not to mention, we would be arriving into town around 2:30pm which meant we were cutting it close if we wanted to stop by the market to grab some items for dinner.  Siesta usually hits around 3-5pm, and my friend wanted to start the preparation for dinner at that time. 
Nontheless, we picked up whatever we could for dinner and made our way back home.  The guests were to arrive at 9pm, and my friend still had to clean up the place as well as prepare the food and get ready.  I helped out in the kitchen by doing the dishes.  Because of the limited dishware, I washed while she reused the pots and pans to continue to cook the meals.  It became a stressful ordeal to beat the clock.  Around 8:15pm is when her boyfriend arrived home from work and started to help out in the kitchen while we got ready.  What threw us off is the first early arrival guest showing up at 8:45pm on the dot!  Yikes!  He entertained while we finished up and the next thing you know, the rest of the guests arrived right on time at 9pm.  Time to get this party started!
What is hard for me as an American, and as a LIGHT DRINKER is the tasting of the wines on an empty stomache.  I'm used to having wine with my meal, but here in Italy, you sip and savor and then eat a huge feast to balance out the fuzziness.  Well for me, I'm almost at full drunk mode, but then making I make it more ackward by trying to contain myself at the table.  It's something I definitely have to work on, but since this was my 3rd wine tasting while on vacation, I hope I didn't make a fool of myself this time around. 
My girlfriend threw an amazing feast and we savored every bite.  I even learned a recipe to take back home.  I love dinner parties!   

Sight seeing in Lecce!

Check out those luxe leather fabrics!

Castel Del Monte in Andria!

Gorgeous castle!

Massive!

More fig dishes!

Check out that table!

Good times with good friends!

A night to remember!

Labor Day in Italy!

I had chose this week to be in Italy mostly because I didn't have to miss so much work if I incorporated the Labor Day holiday in there.  Turns out it could have been a bad idea after all.  They were not lying about the rain.  We had to get up early because my friend had to go into work for an hour.  She teaches English here in Italy and takes assignments as they come.  Today she had to go to a daycare that mostly dealt with kindergardeners and 1st graders.  These kids were so adorable!  Italians come in all shades, so it was interesting to see different faces in class.  They were very excited to learn something new.  Our lesson was on England, so my friend taught them easy expressions and words associated with their nearby neighbor.  We also did an exercise with Simon Says.  Kids have a lot of energy so it's good to have them moving constantly to pay attention.  I do have to say I enjoy how expressive Italians are with their speech.  Sometimes I think it helps to get your point across instead of beating around the bush. 
Afterwards it was already 11am so we started thinking about lunch.  We figured we can go by the farm and do some fig picking.  Yesterday we had a slice of fig pie in Peschici and my friend wanted to bake one and have me compare which one is better.  She definitely improved her cooking skills in Italy.  On our way to the farm we passed up a little town called Torremaggiore.  It was there where I saw my first castle.  It was small, but very well constructed.  The town turned it into a public library.   
We enjoyed the time we had outside walking through the farm and observing the grape and olive trees.  We picked a basket full of figs before we got interrupted by a very big guy that came out of nowhere and scared us half to death.  He had a garden tool with him.  I think he thought we were stealing, but once we explained who we knew that owned the farm, he left us alone and walked off.  I honestly do not know where he went because there was nothing out there but acres of land.  I noticed the clouds getting darker and darker and we figured it was time to head back.  Being out in this particular farm area, lots of truckers pass by, and with that, prostitutes waiting at every corner.  It's interesting seeing them out in the open, but my friend informed me that the town had gotten rid of the brothels because of the church.  They felt that having them roam about will give them an opportunity to get help instead of having them working in an environment that's hard to get out of. 
Regardless, once we got home, the storm came, and it came HARD.  I saw the streets flood with a few inches of water.  Trees were bending sideways.  I heard thunder but didn't really see any lightening.  But it lasted for close to 30 minutes.  Enough to do some major damage.  It rained the rest of the day.  A couple of times it stopped but then it started again.  Me and my girlfriend were stuck in the house.  We napped during siesta and then got up to make dinner.  A couple of friends were going to join us for dinner.  My girl threw down in the kitchen!  I couldn't wait to eat!
Once our little dinner party came over, they set out the wine for the evening.  I truly enjoyed tasting new flavors, mostly because I do not consume beer back home.  If in Chicago, I usually order a vodka with cranberry, sometimes a glass of red.  But because of the company I was with, Italians adore their wine and are glad to share different variations with you to increase your knowledge.  It was a quiet evening with friends, but we made the most of it despite the weather conditions.  Now the biggest challenge is to figure out what to do the rest of the week...