Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Looking back at Cinque Terre

Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.*  Over the next couple of weeks, I  will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Cinque Terre, March 30-31, 2011
Wednesday (3/30): On to Cinque Terre.  Due to slow service, we abandoned our plans for delicious looking pizza in La Spezia (at least we hadn’t paid for it yet) in order to catch our train to Cinque Terre.  Given the sub par pizza lunch that we ended up eating in Vernazza, perhaps we should have just waited for the pizza and taken the next train.

After checking into our “hotel” (Albergo Barbara, identical to the B&Bs, but without breakfast), we filled our water bottles and headed out for some hiking.  The high trail from Vernazza to Monterosso was beautiful, and I was glad I pushed through the challenge of the initial climb, which I took at an embarrassingly slow pace (maybe I DID qualify as a person of impaired mobility!).

After a great hike, including some thunder and a bit of rain, we arrived in Monterossa at a proper Italian dinner time, only to find most of the town, including the most interesting looking restaurants, closed.  Turns out many of the restaurants and stores in Cinque Terre were still closed for “low season,” even though all of the lodging establishments were charging “high season” prices.

The day continued to be a food flop, with a dinner that consisted of pasta (the noodles themselves were decent) with the worst pesto we’ve ever had, plus some minestrone that was decent, but was likely a decent variety of canned minestrone.  If the prices reflected the quality of the food, this would have been somewhat less painful, but instead we paid about 20 euros (~$28) for the privilege.

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Thursday: Found a bakery (Il Discovolo) specializing in local products in Manorolo, where we really enjoyed the farinata (chickpea flour savory pastry filled with cheese) and the lightly sweet chesnut bar.  In Riomaggiore, we found a place to buy nice panini ingredients (buffalo mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, eggplant, and olives) by the kilo, so we loaded up on lunch ingredients and set off on the hike between Manarola and Corniglia.

Another great hike, through terraced vineyards, and overgrown terraces that must have once been vineyards or otherwise farmed.  For dinner, we headed back to the bakery and picked up a savory spinach pastry (similar to spanikopita), plus more panini ingredients, since the restaurants in Cinque Terre left us quite nonplussed.

We also found out that the train strike [that we’d heard rumors of all day] was ON, which put Friday’s travel to Siena in jeopardy . . . .

Read the previous post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.
Read the next post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Blue Green Mama update

It’s been a few months since I wrote about my struggles with postpartum depression (though not officially diagnosed, my symptoms and their duration seem consistent with actual PPD and not just postpartum adjustment disorder).  I met with a counselor soon after I wrote that post and continued to see her regularly for 3 1/2 months.

During that time, we worked on a lot of issues surrounding my derailed home birth plans, the unplanned Cesarean, and life as I’d known it being completely altered by the addition of a new little person.  After about ten sessions, I felt I’d accomplished as much as I could in therapy (at least for now), so I checked myself out at the end of February.  Here are some things I’ve learned in that time.

This caring for a baby shit is hardContinue reading “Blue Green Mama update”

Looking back at Florence

Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.*  Over the next couple of weeks, I  will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Florence, March 27-29, 2011
Sunday (3/27): After a night at a smoky B&B on the outskirts of Rome (Ciao Ciao Roma), we experienced our first Italian “breakfast,” Matthew hit up an ATM, and we headed to Termini Station to find a train to Florence.  We chose the 18 euro/person 4-hour regional train over the 48 euro/person 2-hour fast train, and, with an hour-and-a-half to kill, went in search of some lunch.  Lacking time (or so we believed) to make it to the place we first planned to eat, we randomly ended up at a Chinese restaurant.  First meal in Italy = Chinese food?  Only slightly weird.

We returned to the station without much time to spare, only to discover that, surprise, Italy did the whole “spring ahead” thing last night, and the train we planned to take departed an hour ago.  Welcome to Italy!

We made friends with a sister and brother traveling together on the train to Florence, and chatting with them helped the 4+ hours pass.  We arrived to a rainy evening in Florence.  Once checked in at our B&B (Residenza Betta, not smoky), we went in search of dinner.  Being 8pm and proper Italian dinner time, our first choice restaurant was packed, with no sign of a table opening soon in the tiny space, so we headed to Trattoria Guelfa (recommended by the B&B hostess), where we ran into our train friends.  We enjoyed a nice dinner there, including a “lasagna” with wide noodles and tasty porcinis, delicious bread soup, and complementary dessert wine and biscotti.

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Monday (3/28): The next day, we climbed the Duomo and stood outside on the top in a thunderstorm, while I thought about cathedrals collapsing, a la Pillars of the Earth (if I’d only read the book, it might have been okay, but we recently watched the mini-series on Netflix, so I was a little nervous, especially after Matthew helpfully pointed out the Duomo’s infamous crack – you couldn’t have told me about that before we climbed all the way up here?).

We found a very cheap cafeteria-line place to eat lunch and dry out, and by the time we were finished, the skies were clearing.  We found the much-recommend Grom and thoroughly enjoyed our first gelato in Italy – the pear was particularly amazing.

We crossed the river to the Oltrarno area and followed the recommended walk in our guide book.  We discovered a clothing boutique with locally hand-made clothing and narrowly escaped without depleting our euros.

After lots of walking, peaking into some churches, and watching the sunset at the Piazza Michalangelo, we dined at an all-organic, vegetarian restaurant in Oltrarno (Vivanda Gastronomia).

Tuesday (3/29): We spent the morning at the Uffizi Museum, and for lunch we found the panini place (Vinaino di Parte Guelfa) recommended by our friends.  Continuing our museum blitz, we went to the Academia to see David.  That night, we arrived early and dined at the place that was full on our initial attempt on Sunday night (restaurant name???).  After dinner, we headed to the Pitti Palace, hoping to get to see the Boboli Gardens, but the gardens were not part of the special free late night.  We caught the bus up to the Piazza Michelangelo so we could look down on Florence in the dark.

Read the previous post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.
Read the next post in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Making crackers

As you may have noticed, we make many items from scratch and buy very little processed food.  However, crackers are an exception to that general practice.  We don’t eat all that many crackers, probably in part because they ARE processed and involve a good bit of packaging waste.

Once a baby entered the picture, crackers went on my mental “things I could make from scratch, but since I’m not in the habit of doing so, and life is now crazy, I probably never will” list, along with making soy milk and a few other things that I don’t remember right now.

A few weeks ago, Matthew printed out this recipe for homemade crackers.  I set it aside, assuming nothing would come of it.  Shortly thereafter, he took a turn staying home with our sick little Sir.

When I returned home from work that day, I found a fresh batch of homemade crackers.  (In case making crackers and prepping dinner while caring for a sick baby weren’t enough, he also made homemade croissants, ensuring that I would look like a complete slacker on my days home with the baby — just sayin’).

Anyhow, I tried my hand at the crackers over the weekend, giving them a multigrain twist, and making a double batch, because we noticed that a single batch disappeared very quickly.  Continue reading “Making crackers”

Looking back at . . .

Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.*  Over the next couple of weeks, I  will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at  . . . ” series.

Flight to Rome, March 26, 2011
Being kicked out of my exit row seat on the Ryan Air flight from London to Rome was only the beginning of the fun.  Oh wait, actually, the fun began before that, with the super-strict carry-on allowance (which we fortunately knew about ahead of time) and the chaos and stress of the boarding free-for-all.  We were decompressing after managing to get seats together, seats that even had leg room, when a flight attendant informed me that I would need to relocate for take-off and landing.  Apparently all pregnant women are considered “persons of impaired mobility” and incapable of performing exit row functions.  Ahem!

After take-off, I hightailed it back to my rightful seat, where I spent the rest of the flight enduring a barrage of sales pitches.  They started with lotto tickets then moved on to electronic cigarettes, which could be smoked in-flight.  Blood boiling and contemplating the wisdom of opening the emergency exit while in flight, I watched the flight attendant walk most of the length of the plane without selling any cigarettes.

I thought we had escaped with the air quality of the plane intact until they brought out the next item for sale, announcing that they had testers available for people to try the scents.  Are you kidding me?!?!  Testing perfume on an airplane?!?!?  Fortunately, my passengers seemed equally uninterested in this offer.

Luckily, the scheduled two hour flight was closer to an hour-and-a-half, which is the only thing that saved us from the final product offer, wherein the flight attendants would have announced the presence of poisonous vipers on the plane and come through the aisle selling anti-venom at the low, low price of 85 euro per dose.

*Apparently, I did write a few posts immediately after the trip: