July 17th happy 16th birthday to my grand pa!

So today was my grandpas birthday and to celebrate I made my own carrot cake recipe and called it vinny's extreme carrot cake. The cake lived up to its name and has a pleasant spice of autumn spices and the cream cheese icing had Tahitian vanilla extract to really capture the flavor of it's delicate sweet flavor. When it came to decorating the cake I made a pattern with the candles that had 63 on it. Needless to say my grand pa was Rey happy and was amazed I re invented his favorite cake.

Soviet union/Russia- strawberries romanoff

So I was cooking this lovely dessert from Betty crockers around the world cook book, this dessert had to be the most simple and refreshing dessert. All you do is soak 1 quart berries in 3 to 4 tablespoons of kirsch or triple sec orange liquor mixed mixed with 1/2 cup of powdered sugar for 2 hours or over night. After 2 hours beat 1 cup of whipped cream until soft peaks form and fold in strawberries. (I used 1/2tsp of Tahitian vanilla extract with the cream because it enhances the cherry flavor of the kirsch, if used). Your dessert is very light and has a balance of sweetness and tang from the strawberries. It's amazing how such a simple dish was once popular in gourmet restaurants in the 1970's and now it's hardly known.

Italy- A taste of CAmpania's cuisine

Campania, best know for its pizza its cusine relies on sun kissed vegtables and herbs, salty capers, dried pasta, and freh farm house cheeses (the most known is water buffalo mozzarella. In the 19th century people living in the capital of were nicked named mangia maccheroni (macaroni eaters). To this day Neapolitans remain devout pasta eaters and there pasta is among the best an the most varried among Italy . I decided to try there 3 course meal starting with there Pizza napoletana that's aromatic flavors were composed of anchovy fillets, sun dried tomatoes, basil, and rosemary. The saltiness of the anchovy fillets we're balanced with the spices added and ironically this pizza was true Italian food, due to the fact it was very thin. It was not as thick as the dreadful American pizza places. . The main course was Tonno salernitana a tuna fillet with a pepper and tomato salad under neath and a very light dressing. The tuna was very light and had an almost chicken taste not fishy at all. The amazing dessert was Straberry sambuca tiramisu, a tiramisu that looked almost like a strawberry short cake and yet it had layers of whipped mascarpone mousse and strawberry soaked citrus sponge cake. The dessert also paired well with macchiato. A macchiato is a shot of very strong coffe and the word macccchiato means simply means marked or stained. In the case of caffè macchiato, this means literally espresso stained/marked with milk. Traditionally it is made with one shot of espresso, and the small amount of added milk was the stain. However, later the mark or stain came to refer to the foamed milk that was put on top to indicate the beverage has a little milk in it, usually about a teaspoon. This was the case with mine it was very good though since I personally love coffee with little to no milk in it. It sure beat American coffee. campiello's was the reasturant i got this amazing food at (its really good to go to) and they usually change there region of Italy every month so be sure to come get a taste of Campania's amazing cuisine!

Mexico- a sublime apitizer and comforting dessert

On the day I arrived in Florida I went to this mexican restaurant iguana Mia. They have a very good appetizer called yucca frita with garlic sauce. Yucca is a starch root vegetable and it pairs very nicely with the savory flavored garlic sauce. The dessert there was fried ice cream witch was really a ice cream rolled in common and sweet crispy oats in a dessert taco shell. Over all a comforting dinner.

France- cherry flan an easy dessert

Hello readers sorry for the long wait I have been busy with a lot of events in my life but I will now be posting more often. Currently I have been studying Simone Beck's and Julia child's recipes in honor of mastering the art of French bookings 50th adversary and Julia child's 100th birthday coming up in August. Well on Sunday I decide to make Julia child's recipe for cherry flan it's on page 655 in mastering the art of French cooking. It's a very simple dessert to prepare and very fun to make because you just blend up the batter for the flan and when making it in the blender I recommend using vanilla bean paste to really get the vanilla flavor that pairs well with cherry. The fun part was pouring a little bit of the batter in a glass dish and putting it on the stove burner for 1 minute to make it a crust. Than all you do is just put the cherries on and sprinkle them with sugar, than just pour the rest of the oven and bake it for 1 hour. I wait about 20 minutes before serving so its warm and set. It's better than Spanish flan because it's got a very good cherry and vanilla flavor. I recommend this dish for a nice dessert at home.

Japan- going to a hibachi grill

Hello guys! Sorry for the long reply I was in Florida for a week! So guys today I visited a Japanese hibachi grill called east Tokyo. The cool thing about Japanese cooking is that they use a giant grill called a hibatchi that reach temperatures to the extreme. Try start off buy giving you a salad with great dressing a a clear water soup. Clear water soup is ment to be a welcoming dish to start off to the feast your about to have. It's also what it sounds like its clear water mixed with at least 3 seasoning such as dried mushrooms, chives, and lemon. The grill starts off with a talented chef starting a controlled fire to wow the audience. He than show off his skills of throwing and catching his spatulas and knife. You will get to watch all your meals be made and about half way through he will do a trick where you will have to try to catch a piece of cucumber he throws at you with his spatula.Today was the first time In my life I caught it perfectly on the first time. The chef also did another trick where he aims at your mouth with a sake bottle (sake is a rice based Japanese wine) and i got such a mouth full of it I coulda been pulled over for driving drunk. I did also get to try edamame whitch is a preparation of soy bean pods with just a bit of salt on them. My main meal was chicken and lobster with some shrimp and pepper on a sekwer stick. Everything was well seasoned with sake and soy sauce. Dessert ended on a sweet note but as you in Japan they don't have desserts they usally end the meal with fruit. My dessert was mochi filled with red bean ice cream. Mochi is like a soy dough and you roll it out an wrap cold ice cream in it. Red bean ice cream really has a flavor of its own but it's like the perfect amount of a natural sweetness. Through out the meal I had green tea since I wanted to get the most of eating the Japanese way and my mom used a fork -_- ( hello use chop sticks). So go on out to your nearest local hibatchi grill and experience the beautiful art of Japan's savory cusine.

Happy Easter to my readers! :D

Happy Easter and I hope you all made a great dinner! I made some Passover recipes like cherry soup and eggplant salad. Since Israel has dietary laws they make things kosher and these recipes were flour free so the guest that joined us for Easter was able to enjoy very flavorful dishes despite his gluten allergies. The other food I made was from France there was stuffed mushrooms, queen of Sheba cake. The main course was a nice Easter ham with madeira wine sauce (from bon appetit magazine on the nook). desserts were mostly made of lemon because it's the in dessert for easter dude to the fact it's very light and not heavy after a filling meal. I made lemon fudge, lemon strawberry bavarian cream, and lemon mascarpone cheesecake (recipes from celebrate magazine on the nook). enjoy readers!