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.