Venison, Ribs, and Potatoes. Nothing short of a dream come true. Well Played, Sir!

When Terry and I were home (Portland and Vancouver respectively) visiting our parents for the Christmas holiday we were invited over to have dinner at my dad's house. He had recently gone on a hunting trip with some of his friends and wanted to cook up some of the venison that they brought back. I love venison, and fresh game meat in general, so this sounded delicious.

We headed over and joined them while they started to prepare the meal. Upon arriving we discovered that the venison would be accompanied by ribs that were shipped in from my dad's favorite spot in Memphis, greens, and good'ol mashed potatoes (with plenty of butter at my urging). What a wonderful discovery! Venison and ribs, I mean come on. That's genius. Then mashed potatoes and greens (steamed leafs aren't usually my thing, but I'll get to that in a bit).

The venison had been marinating for a while. Brenda had found a recipe in a cookbook that used a marinade and put it together earlier that day. For those who are curious here is the recipe for the marinade:

• 1/4 Cup Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 Tablespoons Sherry Vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon Minced Garlic
• 1 Tablespoon Finely Chopped Fresh Thyme
• 2 Teaspoons Whole-Grain Mustard
• 1/2 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
• 1/4 Teaspoon Freshly Ground Black Pepper

The meat was originally cut into steaks, but she had cut them into chunks as the initial intention was to cook them as kabobs. As we settled in we strayed from that idea and went in the direction of just throwing them on the grill and seeing what came of it. Since the venison was cut into such small pieces they couldn't be thrown right onto the grill without worry of them falling through the grate. So we put them in a grill basket such as this one, Kingsford KNS75 Grill Basket with 26-inch Hardwood Handle, which ended up working perfectly. The meat stayed on the grill for about ten minutes before being ready to be taken off.

I wasted absolutely no time in getting my paws on a piece of the venison. It had been a while and when I took the first bite it was amazing. The marinade gave the meat a great flavor, and the meat itself wasn't gamy like so venison can be. It was a good cut (nice and tender), and there was not very much fat (which is what tends to give venison its gamy taste.)

 The potatoes were straight forward, but hit the spot. They were mashed with a hand mixer, which when all was said and done probably ended up mashing the potatoes too much. They were almost too thick, but a good slathering of butter brought them back to form, and no love was lost for the potatoes.

 The greens were the surprise for me. I knew that I would love everything else in the meal, but any kind of leaf that is cooked or steamed is usually my nemesis. This was not the case here. While I could still get a hint of the flavor that I don't like, I was able to enjoy and eat this dish. I didn't wait until everything else was gone and eat as much as I could choke down just to be polite. It was a good mixture of what I believe was collard greens and kale, it could have been chard. Either way it was great, and the bacon didn't hurt one bit either.

And then there were ribs. These were the ribs that my dad had flown in from Memphis, and they were worth it. Of course some of you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking that they can't possibly be very good after taking that trip, especially since they were already cooked when shipped. Well for those of you, I will say that you are wrong. I will give you that there is no replacement for the fresh out of the smoker taste, and that they would be better at the restaurant, but that is all I can budge on the matter. After a short stint in the oven and a hit of some rub from another favorite Memphis locale these babies were ready to rock, and rock they did. The were FULL of flavor, soft, and tender. I was surprised as to how tender they actually were, and the flavor from the fresh dose of rub they got was pretty awesome.

So there you have it. A great dinner with two main meat dishes. I encourage all who have never had venison to seek out a fresh cut and do some experimenting. Just remember to remove the fat so that you do not encounter a gamy flavor that most won't enjoy. Let me know if you have any questions or need any further details.

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Cheese!!! A New Way to Make Ball Park Style Cheese Sauce

It was Sunday night, and the last football game of the weekend had come and gone so I decided to take a look at some of the other food blogs that I like to read. I paid a visit to one of my favorites, serious eats, to see what they had going on. I almost immediately came upon an article that I had to read being that I am a cheese lover. It was an article in which Kenji (the author) was trying to figure out how to make a cheese sauce that resembles the sauce that you get with nachos at a sporting event. The problem being that if you take some real cheddar and simply melt it you get an oily, and far from runny result, which is fine for those of us in need of a quick fix and happen have a bag of Tostitos, a block of cheddar, and a microwave handy. Other wise you will probably be wishing you had one of the glorious machines that dispenses a slightly spicy, runny at all temperatures, and wonderfully off tasting cheese sauce of the likes you would normally encounter at ball games and movie theaters.

This was not going to thwart Kenji, and he set out on a quest to make this possible with the use of cheddar as opposed to Velveeta. Follow this link to the full article, The Burger Lab: Cheese Sauce for Burgers, Fries, and Chips. It is a good read, and he knows way more about the food reactions than I do so I won't even attempt to paraphrase what he found. Not to totally ruin it for you, but he did find a solution, and posted a recipe for his findings. I'll post a link to the recipe at the bottom of this post so that you may all use it as I did. I had to see what this was all about. The BCS national championship game was the next day, and I had people coming to watch. So even though there was already plenty of food I decided that this was a perfect football dish, and as good of a time as any to see how it tasted.

As you can see from the first picture the ingredients are simple (I doubled them), and consist of cheddar cheese (he suggested extra sharp), corn starch, evaporated milk, and hot sauce. The measurements are easy, and the next step is to mix them all in a pan and heat until ready.

So mix and heat I did. It was not very appetizing when first mixed, but that was to be expected. I also put a lot more hot sauce into the mixture as I am a huge fan of most things spicy. The only trick is to make sure that it looses the initial grainy texture, and that you let it set up enough as to not be too runny. Other than that its genius. Super quick, easy, and well its cheese sauce so its awesome. 

Ok, so I made too much. It was good though, and it would be delicious on so many things other than as a dip (chips were sadly the only cheese sauce worthy thing I had at the time). I will be busting this out for many occasions, the Superbowl being the next frontier. Thank you Kenji for your work, and here is a link to the recipe for all to enjoy, Cheese Sauce for Cheese Fries and Nachos.


Cheddar Cheese Sauce

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First Dinner of 2011

So I was sitting around last night (I've been doing a lot of that since I had knee surgery on Monday), and I was thinking that I wanted to cook something. I have been doing a lot of reading and writing about food lately, but had not cooked in a while. So I went off to the store, and saw some good steaks. I picked up some mushrooms and filets, and decided to cook some of the meal I had last posted about. This way I get to enjoy the food, and give you a more visual break down of my process. There won't be any scalloped potatoes (I went with baked potatoes instead), and I also made a salad and not asparagus.  So here is a detailed breakdown of how I like to prepare filets and a red wine mushroom sauce.

 Make sure you clean all of the mushrooms before you start to cut them. I choose four different mushrooms for this meal, and just picked what I wanted at the time. I also like to have a lot of the sauce so I take at least a pound and a half of them, this time they came in right under two pounds.

When you are done cleaning the mushrooms, try to shake off as much of the water as you can. Mushrooms are naturally  moist so they will sweat a lot of water when you start to cook them, and don't need any more as it will just add to your cook time. When you have them as dry as you can then start to chop them up so you have some good size slices, but not so big that they are too overwhelming.

Just as I had said, the mushrooms come first. Get a good pan that they can cook down in, and add some butter and oil. Bring it up to heat, I use a medium to medium low heat, and then add your garlic.

Once the pan is nice and hot, throw your garlic in and let it soften and brown. I am pretty generous with the garlic, and I urge you to do the same.

 While the garlic sets up for a minute or two, make sure that you have your meat out so that it can come up to room temp before you start to cook.

I also had some seasoning prepared that I put on the steaks. This is all a matter of preference. If you like it simple then you can't go wrong with the tried and true combination of fresh ground salt and pepper. I went with some salt, pepper, onion powder, a little bit of johnny's, and then some cayenne. This looks and sounds like a lot, but I do not put it on the steak until about 10 minutes out from when I'm going to throw it on the pan, and I brush a good amount off. Even if you are a little heavy on the seasoning most of it will get seared off when you throw the steaks on the 500 degree pan.

When the garlic is slightly browned and getting soft throw all of your mushrooms into the pan and let them sweat out all of their moisture.

There will be a large mound of them at first, but you will see that they will begin to break down right away. Stir them occasionally so that they do not burn on the bottom of the pan (this won't be much of an issue at first due to the amount of water that will be coming out of the mushrooms.) Make sure that your oven is coming to temp with the cast iron pan in it.

When most of the moisture has evaporated then its time to add the red wine. I add more than the recipe asks for, and let it reduce since I really enjoy the taste of the red wine in the mushrooms.

At this point the oven should be ready to go, and your steaks should be seasoned and at room temperature. So clear a spot on the range, and turn the burner that you are going to use on high heat. Grab the pan out of the oven (be very careful), and put the pan on the burner.

Take the steaks, and put them directly onto the pan. There is no need for any oil. You want the steaks to get a good sear. Let them sit with out disturbing for about 3 minutes before flipping.

Flip them and let them be. Let the steaks sit, and then transfer them into a baking dish that has also been in the oven. Right about this time the mushrooms should be ready for the cream. The timing depends on how much wine you used, and the heat you have them on, but when the wine has reduced substantially then add your cream.

I just eyeball the cream, but as you can tell from the picture above I am not shy. I let this reduce, and as it goes down I add little splashes of red wine. The steaks will only take 6-8 minutes to be ready, so they will probably be ready before the mushrooms are. This isn't an issue since you want the steaks to rest for around 10 minutes, so you will have plenty of time once you pull them

Pull the steaks and let them sit. This is when I usually get everything else pulled together. You should be ready to turn the mushrooms off soon after the steaks come out. So finish up the other parts of your meal. In my case it was taking the salad out of the fridge, and the baked potatoes out of the other oven. The mushrooms should have reduced and thickened quite a bit by now.

Pull them from heat, and serve.

The mushrooms should compliment the steak really well, and they will also taste good with the potatoes. The steak should be tender and juicy. It was a really good and easy meal to throw together. It took me a little less than an hour to make the whole thing. That is including the prep work needed, so you can make a pretty decent dinner in a rather short amount of time. The results will be great, and any guests you have over will be signing up for the next meal you make before they leave.

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Filet Mignon and Scalloped Potatoes

Up to this point my posts have revolved around experiences that I have had, and the food that I encountered during those experiences. Today will be my first post that focuses on something that I have made rather than something that I have been served. I am going to mix in posts about what I cook, and what I enjoy to make. I will start with the dish shown above, one of my go to dishes. It is a steak dish, filet mignon with a three mushroom red wine sauce to be exact. I serve it with scalloped potatoes, asparagus, and an olive ciabatta bread.

Lets start off with the scalloped potatoes because they can be done in steps and also take the longest from start to finish. I started with this recipe I found on epicurious. I am not a fan of yams or sweet potatoes --at least not enough to cook them on my own-- so that was the first thing I changed. I make them with 3 pounds of yukon golds, and no yams. I also like cheese, so I added a second cheese to the list, and some more cream and butter. I only added those because I like to reduce my sauces a little longer than normal so I need a higher volume to start with. So here is what the shopping list looks like when I make them:

3 pounds medium Yukon Gold potatoes
4 cups heavy whipping cream
1 - 1/3 stick of butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh Italian parsley
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon minced fresh sage
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6-8 ounces coarsely grated Gruyre cheese
6-8 ounces coarsely grated pecorino romano

The Picture From Epicurious

I wont bore you with step by step details, as you can find those by following the epicurious link above. I will highlight some things that I changed, and some tips to make it go as smooth as possible. First of all, the potatoes need to be sliced really thin, and the more consistent and uniform you can make slices the better. This will really show when eating the dish because the slices will be cooked evenly, and each bite will have the same texture (no big less cooked chunks). For the best and easiest way to get these results I would suggest using a mandoline. There is no doubt that it will make your life easier, and the prep time will be reduced dramatically. If you can afford it I would suggest the Oxo Good Grips Mandoline Slicer, but the Progressive International HGT-11 Folding Mandoline Slicer works well too, and comes at a much lower price.

The Finished Product

Follow the other instructions well, and make sure that you are thorough when chopping the herbs. Having a good and very sharp knife will help, I use the Kyocera Revolution Series Paring and Santoku Knife Set, Black Blade. It is super sharp and since it has a ceramic blade you will never have to sharpen it. You will be amazed at the amount of flavor the dish takes from the herbs, it really makes it. The other deviation that I make is in the sauce. I normally double the ingredients that I buy, and let the sauce reduce over low heat for a little while before pouring it over the potatoes. This is not by any means the healthy way to go, but man does it ever taste good! The dish is a mixture of cream, cheese, butter, and herbs with the potatoes acting as the medium in which all of those deliciously sinister flavors are carried to your stomach. It is simple and straightforward, but extremely hearty and packed full of flavor. Do make sure that there is not too much liquid in the potatoes before pulling them out, as this will result in very tasty but runny potatoes. Be patient and let them set up for the best results

Now onto the mushrooms. These take the second longest due to the amount of chopping and the time that it takes to reduce so many mushrooms. You can prep the potatoes up until the point of baking and put it in the fridge while you prep this.

I based this recipe off of one that I found on the food network's website. Click on the link to see the full red wine and wild mushroom sauce recipe. I enjoy walking through the store and picking out a medley of which ever mushrooms look best. I prefer to make this when I am able to get a good amount of chantrelles. This is hard to do if they are not in season, as they will be hard to find, and really expensive.

Don't be put off by the mountain of mushrooms that you will have in your in your pan. It will take a while to sweat and reduced them, but it turns out to be well worth it. Like I mentioned with the potatoes I tend to let things reduce as much and as slowly as I can (if within reason). In this case I add a good amount of wine and let it reduce down, and repeat a couple of times (I do this because I didn't think the original recipe gave the mushrooms enough of the red wine flavor). I also add more cream, but not very much in this case. I just really like to get the wine flavor into the mushrooms, and use the cream to help with the thickness as the mushrooms approach getting ready. Be patient with these, and you will be rewarded.

The meat is the easy part. In the picture above I had made a sauce just for the steaks to cook in, and I have to say that was a waste of time in my opinion. Ever since then I won't bake a steak, I will either grill or pan sear them. For this meal I did the later. It makes for a quick and well done steak, and does not depend on summer weather for ideal cooking conditions.

I take the filets (or which ever cut you decide to go with) and lightly season them with salt and pepper, or any seasonings you like to use. Let the steaks sit and come up to room temp for about an hour before cooking. You should have the oven pre-heated to 500 and you will want to take a cast iron pan and place it in the oven while it comes to temp. You will also want to keep a baking sheet in the oven so you can transfer the steaks over after you sear them.

When the oven is heated take the pan out and immediately place the steaks in the pan. Let them cook undisturbed for about 2.5 to 3 minutes. Flip and repeat. This will give the steaks nice markings, and will help to lock in the juices. Then take the steaks and place them on the baking sheet that you have in the oven. Let them cook for 7 to 8 minutes for medium rare. This is the only way I will make steaks other than grilling. This is also the method that many restaurants use to prepare their steaks. I find that cooking the steak all the way through in the pan leaves a bad taste and dries the meat out. Like I mentioned earlier you can also bake the steak, but I think that takes too long and isn't as fun. Remember that you NEED to let your steaks rest for about ten minutes. They will taste better, and they will also continue to cook, so keep that in mind when you are judging if they are ready to be pulled from the oven.

For the green portion of my dish I went with asparagus. I love it, and its easy to cook. This was important because as you are finishing all of the dishes so that they are ready on time you will not want to have to babysit your veggies. For the asparagus I took some garlic and minced it, then I added butter and a little bit of oil to a pan. I let it come to temp and added the garlic and left it for a minute before adding the asparagus. I added the asparagus and threw a lid over it to get things going. After a couple of minutes I took the lid off and then let them cook to my liking. I usually like it so they still have a little snap to them, but I also want them to soften up a bit too.

During the last couple minutes I will throw what ever bread I picked for the night into the oven so that I can serve it warm. Almost as important as having the bread is having warm butter. I can't stand it when you are served bread and the butter is fresh out of the fridge, and hard as a rock. Its butter, not ice cream. This leaves you with three options, the first being not using butter. The second option in this scenario is to take way too much time to finesse the butter on the bread. The third option is to savagely attack the bread with the butter as to not waste anytime in which case your bread will look like it was buttered by a wolverine. So put the butter out for a half hour before you serve.

The result will be wonderful! If you enjoy cooking then this will be a treat. The process of turning all the ingredients into something so tasty for everyone to enjoy is the best feeling one can have (when cooking). The dish should look fairly simple, but should have a much more complex flavor. That flavor will act the only hint as to how much work and care you put into the dishes preperation. The fresh ingredients and the patience needed to make it just right will really shine through when people begin to take bite after bite. If you are like me you probably wont be hungry, and will settle for a little right away, so not to be rude.

The finished Product

I hope this will inspire someone to attempt this dish or a part of it. Please leave any questions and/or comments that you may have and I will respond as soon as I can. If you make this or any part please take a picture and post it to the comments!

In case the links above are not working here are the URL's to the recipes:

Potatoes: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Scalloped-Yukon-Gold-and-Sweet-Potato-Gratin-with-Fresh-Herbs-350455

Mushroom Sauce: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/red-wine-and-wild-mushroom-sauce-recipe/index.html

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Fontana's

Terry took me out to dinner one night. She found the restaurant and kept it as a surprise until we arrived. She choose Fontana's Italian Restaurant in Cupertino. It was nice inside, and we were seated right away. We brought our own bottle of wine so we never took a look at the wine list. We looked over the menu and picked out two starters. They were both dishes that we had had the month previous in Rome. The dish above was the Arancini di Riso. They are lightly fired risotto balls. Inside is a mixture of risotto and cheese, and it was served in a creamy tomato sauce. We had similar rice balls when we were in Rome, but they did not have the cheese inside. So while similar the two dishes are hard to compare. The Arancini was good. The mixture of cheese and risotto made them a fairly dense texture. The mixture was rich, though not overly so due to the mild nature of the fontina cheese. They were fried just how we like them, nice and crisp, but not very heavy. The tomato sauce was also quite rich. It was creamy and did not have an overly pungent tomato flavor. It was quite good.

  If there is caprese as starter at any restaurant there is a 80% chance that one of us will order it (Terry usually beats me to the punch). The caprese that they had at Fontana's was different though. It was made more or less how I like to make it. They used heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella di bufala. It was served with vinegar and basil sitting on a bed of greens. I believe this was a special they had that night, and not the regular caprese they normally offer. This was perfect for me. Heirloom tomatoes were the first variety of tomato I liked, and have been my favorite ever since. Bufala mozzarella is also thought to be one of the best types of mozzarella. The tomatoes were thick, juicy, and bursting with flavor. While the mozzarella was moist, but not to the point that it lost its shape and fell apart. Stack the two on top of one another with a dash of salt and you had a deliciously layered bite that presented you with a great contrast in texture and flavor alike. The flavors were were further complimented by the vinegar and basil.

 For my main course I decided to go with the Scampi Saltati. It is a prawn dish, with a crispy crab polenta in the center. The prawns are sauteed in butter, onion, garlic, white wine, and cream. The polenta rests on a bed of sauteed spinach. I thought the prawns were delicious, but the polenta was a bit strange. It was really crisp, and I think I would have enjoyed a lump of fresh crab more. Though it was good if you covered it in the sauce, as was the spinach, which I normally do not like very much. There is something to be said about simplicity in a dish. This had a lot going on, and some areas fell short.

Terry on the other hand, hit a home run on her dish. She decided to go with the Tortelloni Del Mare. The torelloni was stuffed with asparagus and cheese, and was served with prawns and scallops. The tortelloni looked to be made from scratch and had the wonderful fresh pasta taste. The stuffing was well done, and didn't steal the meal with overpowering flavors. Both the prawns and scallops were well prepared too. This dish was simple and straight forward, had a ton of flavor, and was cooked very well.

It is rare that either one of us will order a dessert. It's not that we have anything against them, but after a bite or two we have had enough. This was one of the exceptions. We were having  a great time that night and the creme brulee caught our eye. We both enjoy it from time to time, and it happened to be topped with bananas, which Terry absolutely loves. The dessert was great. The custard was nice and warm on the inside, and the bananas were covered with a crisp layer of caramelized sugar. I love it when I can dip my spoon in and get some of the warm carmalized sugar along with some of the slightly cooler custard. Those two textures, as long as the custard has the right consistency is one of my favorites when speaking of desserts. This creme brulee had just that, and took it up a notch with the bananas. We were very happy, and had a wonderful server too. He offered his honest opinion when asked, and even knew what type of wine glasses to grab for the Cabernet Sauvignon that we brought for dinner. This was a fun place, and a wonderful surprise dinner.

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Rome Part 2

St Peters Basilica

Our adventure in Rome continued. We kept up with the theme of red wine, while also picking up another. I was dead set on finding an "authentic" margarita pizza while we were in Rome. So everywhere we could we either ordered one, or looked to see what they looked like.

The back story is that I find the Margarita pizza to be simple and delicious, but there are so many variations here in the states it is hard to tell which is the real deal. It seems that most places just get it all wrong. This hunch was based off of the idea that the margarita pizzas that we see that have light sauce, an ultra thin crust, thin slices of a mozzarella ball, sliced tomato, and a light basil garnish are the real deal (pictured above). While those imposters that just have shredded mozzarella and more sauce are a sham. So we headed out to see some more good sights and have some more good food.

 Our first stop of the day for food was a small pizza place across the street from the Vatican Museum that caught our eye while we made our way to the Basilica. So we started out with three starters. They were all slices of fried heaven. The one front and center is a rice and meat roll. That was really good. I loved the texture of the rice, and the sauce kept it nice and moist, giving good contrast from the fried crust. The roll in the back is kinda like a fried cheesy tatter tot. It tasted as it you would imagine and it was really good as well. The last is prosciutto mozzarella roll, and yes, its also fried. That was on par with every other prosciutto and mozzarella combination we had encountered in Italy thus far. Though it was surprising that the process of frying it seemed to have taken some moisture away, but it was delicious non the less. Oh, and we must not forget the wine. We ordered two glasses for 2.5 Euro a glass, but the server was generous enough to mention that a whole bottle was only 5 Euro. So now that the wine is in the picture...

We did order a margarita pizza, but decided that we did not want it once we saw it. It looked like the shaved cheese type, but we will get back to the pizza a little later. Instead of a margarita pizza we went with a ham and cheese calzone.

This calzone redefined what I think of when I hear the word. Before I would think of a slightly crisp crusted crescent shaped pizza pocket that contained the exact same ingredients as you would find on a pizza. They are huge and usually not that great. Enter the calzone above. This was delightful. It was light, crisp, soft, and savory. The ham and cheese was wonderful and rich, while the dough was airy and soft. The dough was crisp on the outside, but not too far off of the texture of a croissant in the middle. The texture was way different than any calzone I'd ever had. You did not take a bite only to  break through the crust to be met by an explosion of pizza sauce and cheese. It was a subtle crisp with a soft barrier between you and the simple filling of ham and cheese. I really enjoyed this calzone. Way more than the calzones of my past.

After the bottle of wine, and the calzone that changed calzones forever we headed to the Vatican, and walked around (I know, not the most appropriate thing to do post bottle of wine, but that's what we were working with.) We left the Basilica, and grabbed a couple beers from a street vender, and sipped on them as we headed toward the colosseum. This was our second attempt since it was closed by the time we got there the first time due to our leisurely afternoon snack. On our way we caught a whiff of something delicious. There was no doubt that it was coming from the place to our right, so we decided to investigate further. We weren't really hungry mind you, but the search for the "authentic" margarita pizza was on. We ordered and the half a pie that you see above is what was delivered to us (it was whole when it got there). It was yet again the shredded cheese type. We asked and they confirmed that this was indeed a margarita pizza. We were still confused. It looked like a CPK frozen pizza that I would grab at Safeway in a hasty move for a quick meal. There is a bright side. Yet more fun with cheap wine...

Terry Enjoying Herself

 We discretely expressed our opinion of the pizza for a photo, drank our wine, paid the bill, and then left. We were starting to get the notion that we might have the whole pizza thing backwards. Seeing that we have only encountered the above style while in Rome, it was becoming all to possible that we were wrong in our assumptions. On our trek to the colosseum we popped our head into another pizza place and their margarita pizza was more of the same. At that point the phrase "silly American" was popping into my head, but we hadn't given up yet.

 

Damn. The pizza that broke the Americans back. At this point we were either very wrong or we were picking all of the wrong places to get pizza from. This was at the end of the night, and yet again its not the holy grail that I was searching for.

This concludes our European adventure. I will show a couple photos below of my meals leaving the country, giving you an idea of how the quality deminishes as you leave. It is still a delight when eating here at home, and biting into a dish to find that it is similar to what we were able to enjoy while abroad.

 

The final panini. This was at the airport moments before I had to board the plane. Surprisingly it was still better than some panini's that I have had here, but it was a far cry from what we were eating the night before.

The final blow. This is the meal that I had on the flight back. It was airplane gnocchi and it was not glorious. It was aided by the mini bottle of Jack Daniels that I washed it down with in preparation for my mid flight snooze. 

It was a awesome trip, and we had a great time. We saw a lot. We ate and drank our fair share, and I can't wait to go back.

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