It's Been an AWESOME Christmas!

View from the bedroom window of my cousins' beautiful home where we spent Christmas! No wonder everything in their yard is beautiful ... check out their website!

A gorgeous hike.

Me and D in front of the 1844 Meeting House in Eaton, NH.  

Fastest and Most Delicious Route to an Old Fashioned Italian Sugar Coma (And a Pretty Fall Wreath To Go)

Dispatch from Beantown.  Let's start with a wreath I passed walking through the North End.  Because you know I LOVE wreaths. (Also check out my "I Have a Thing For Wreaths" board on Pinterest!)

Pretty wreath on the shiny black door of a restaurant in the North End.

Mike's Pastry, the iconic North End shop of Italian pastry heaven.

Mike's gets ready for Thanksgiving.

No fewer than Eight flavors of macaroons (with two o's, different from the exquisite almond flour French macarons - one O ), my all-time favorite Italian cookie/sweet/dessert rainbow layer cookies) and magical looking marzipan on the bottom row.

Cannoli extravaganza:  this summer, Mike's expanded the traditional cannoli flavors to include twelve more -- including the four above, limoncello, strawberry, Oreo, and peanut butter. 

The cannoli parade continues (under the fists of an excited customer!): chocolate covered (shell dipped in chocolate, ends dipped in chips), Florentine (candy and nut shell), chocolate mousse (the filling, as you guessed), pistachio (dipped in the nuts) and on and on they go.

And of course, all kinds of cupcakes.

One of my all time favorite restaurants in the Boston's North End is Piccolo Nido ("Little Nest" in Italian). It is the epitome of what I believe a great Italian restaurant should be: warm and comfortable space, an experienced owner from Italy who is also a wonderful host, the freshest hand made pasta, minestrone of fresh small-chopped veggies in a light tomato broth, all at a good price.  Full review coming next week.  It is a true hidden gem, tell owner Pino that I sent you!  Your meal will be glorious!

Yours, in sugar coma just from posting these photos,
JPV

P-town Characters: From Drag-Performer-on-Pink-Bicycle to the Bronze-Soldier-Statue-That-Moves

There are always interesting new characters in Provincetown like Herbie and Erin who we met this year where they work at the one room P-town Chamber of Commerce.  And the man dressed and made up so much like a bronze statue that mom and I sat nearby and watched three children burst into tears when he (the man-as-war-statue) moved to salute those who put money in his statue-stand-cum-collection box.  ManStatue was eclipsed for a few minutes when the incredibly tall drag queen rode by on a pink bicycle advertising his show called Lip-Schtick.  He was distributing postcards advertising his show which read: "One Boy's Journey to Fabulous and Back!'  I would say he is surely still at Fabulous!

Below: Wait one second ... why is that bronze statue now facing to the right? 

Is the Holiday Weekend Over? Can I Have it Back? Pleeease?

It was fantastic!  Pictures and stories to follow all week.  And my homemade by me lobster ravioli for snacks all week, too!  We picked those lobstahs alive ... this is some dead serious ravioli.

  Not bad for a pic with the crackberry ...

More to come.  Hi Mom!

xoxoxo