Blogging
From Abroad

I walked in a stupor into an “Autogrille”, an Italian-version of a travel plaza (such as “Le Plaza” in Beckley, as my friends like to call it) with snacks and magazines and Harry Potter in Italian and My Little Pony and hunks of meat (for reasons I am not quite sure). Anyway, I was in this stupor during a 5 hour ride from Milano to the countryside and I thought it was just insane, it was so different that most American travel plazas I have been in (no Starbucks? no Sabarro? no West Virginia commemorative plates?) I wanted to share.

Yesterday we had a cooking lesson in traditional Tuscan cooking. I very willingly volunteered to be on the tiramisu “team” because a) I love tiramisu and b) I happen to enjoy baking. I figured this was an “in” into being the it-girl in the world of deserts (at least at my house and amongst my family and friends). A new specialty? Yes, please.

Team tiramisu was an absolute failure. No wonder a good slice at Pasquales’ (local delicious Italian restaurant in Beckley) is $4 or $5. Tiramisu is a very finicky dessert and there are approximately one million eggs involved (hyperbole). It was very difficult and did not have enough time to sit, but everyone seemed to enjoy it, although we were freaking out. We kept giving it all kinds of good zen by telling it it was destined to be the best tiramisu ever (false).