Archive for 2008
carrabba’s italian grill’s “profess your love” contest: win a trip to vegas!
OK Italian food lovers (and legal U.S. residents), here’s your chance to show just how deeply your passion flows and possibly win a trip to Las Vegas in the process.
That’s right! I said Vegas!
Carrabba’s Italian Grill recently announced the “Profess Your Love” contest in which Italian food lovers can submit a short love note to their favorite food or dish, expressing how it has made time with friends and family more special for a chance to win a variety of prizes, including a trip to Las Vegas.
One grand prize winner to receive the “Ultimate Love Escape” including:
• Airfare for two to Las Vegas
• A romantic dinner for two at Carrabba’s
• Tickets to The Beatles LOVE Show by Cirque du Soleil
• A two-night stay at The Venetian and private gondola ride
Nine runners up will receive dinner for four at Carrabba’s, an apron, and signed cookbook.
Entries can be submitted online here until March 31, 2008.
See official contest rules here.
Now Profess Your Love–and in bocca al lupo!
P.S. And although I’ve mentioned wanting to go to Vegas, if you win, I really won’t expect an invite. Really. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be fine. I’ll just go to the real Venice to spite you.
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[tags]Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Profess Your Love, Profess Your Love contest, contests, Las Vegas, Ultimate Love Escape[/tags]
things left unsaid
I’m a fan of being honest.
And I do try to tell my loved ones how important they are to me as much as possible.
Sometimes, though, there are things you’d really like to say to someone but don’t, or can’t, for various reasons–avoidance, tact, shame, embarrassment, shyness, whatever.
I got this idea from -R- at And You Know What Else (who got it from Abbersnail who got it from NPW), and here are 15 things I haven’t said (not all to the same person of course):
1. As much as I don’t want your opinion to matter to me, it does, and it hurts.
2. I’m still sad that our friendship changed so much; I miss you terribly.
3. You don’t know how much seeing your name in my inbox makes me happy.
4. I’m sorry for what is going on with you and your family, but you created the situation.
5. I miss laughing with you *so* much.
6. I am so happy we didn’t work out. So. Very. Happy.
7. I can’t believe you’ve procreated.
8. I’ll never understand your outlook on the world, and that’s a good thing; I’d hate to see the world as you do.
9. You’re becoming your mother. Stop it.
10. I really, truly hope you are happy even though I’ll probably never speak to you again.
11. I’ll never forget the night I met you, and I will always treasure it.
12. Just thinking of you makes me smile. Always.
13. I forgive you, and you don’t even know for what. I forgive you for that too.
14. I think about you every single day at least once, usually more.
15. I’m so very sorry I’m not there watching you learn new things every day.
What haven’t you said?
Buon weekend!
Love Thursday: Nurturing My Travel Lovebug
Soon I will be off on a journey to an island not so far away to spend some time in one of the cities I have been absolutely dying to visit since I moved to this part of the world.
Various circumstances beyond my control have gotten in the way of a trip up until now, but not any more. I’ve got my travel buddy and my travel guide and I’m about to nurture my travel lovebug, who has been neglected for far too long.
[Note to anyone thinking of showing up in my hilltop village and burgling me: you will still have P and the pooches to deal with.]
What? You haven’t figured out where I’m going?
Does this look familiar?
If you’re a fan of Il Padrino a.k.a. The Godfather, and you made it to the end of the third installment, you should recognize this building.
I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve had visions of my re-enacting that fateful scene (what, people run the Rocky steps in Philly all the time!), but when I told P I planned to bring ketchup to make it more realistic, he didn’t seem to think that’d go over well. Go figure.
You think it’s too late to call up Andy Garcia to save me from embarrassment?
*le sigh*
Happy Love Thursday and Happy Trails!
P.S. I won’t be touching a computer for the next several days, so please be patient regarding responses to comments and emails. I’ve planned some posts in advance for you, though, so keep coming by the blog so she won’t get lonely!
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[tags] palermo, sicily, love thursday, the godfather, il padrino, andy garcia, le sigh[/tags]
What’s Cooking Wednesday: Pasta with Tuna and Lemon
Ever since I posted a recipe for Rigatoni with Tuna and Christine mentioned doing that sauce without the tomatoes, I’ve been wanting to try this “in bianco.” P finally gave the nod the other day, and boy do I love the results.
This is a super-fast dish (and easy easy easy), so you’ll want to put on the water to boil for the pasta before you even start cutting anything up. I did this with penne, P’s favorite short pasta, but you could do this with pretty much any kind of pasta and it would work just fine.
I’m going to try it with linguine next, in fact, since as I was eating this I realized it’s kind of a Poor Man’s Linguine with Clams.
Pasta with Tuna & Lemon
- 2 small cans of tuna packed in olive oil
- 1 small red onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 peperoncino, chopped
- fresh chopped parsley (save some for garnish)
- splash of white wine
- lemon juice (I used half a lemon)
- salt to taste
In pan, heat olive oil drained from tuna cans over medium heat. If your tuna isn’t packed in olive oil, use two tablespoons or so of the good stuff.
Add onions and garlic and sauté until translucent without burning.
Mix in tuna, parsley, and peperoncino. Let cook for a few minutes, then add the splash of white wine and let it cook off.
Add a small ladle-full of pasta water, squeeze the lemon juice into the mixture, and leave pan on the heat just long enough for the flavors to mingle. Add salt to taste.
Toss with pasta of your choice.
Told you it was easy.
Buon appetito!
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[tags]tuna, pasta, lemon, tuna with lemon, tuna recipes, pasta with tuna, what’s cooking wednesday, recipes[/tags]
Finding Ravioli and Other Book Recommendations
Last week I received an awesome surprise in the mail from one of my very favorite artists and bloggers, Karen Cole of Artsortments (and I’m not just saying that because her self-portrait from her college days could’ve been done of P’s sister Pina):
That’s a copy of Laura Schenone’s The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family underneath Karen’s card, which shows one of her assemblage sculptures she made while in Cortona in 2006. Isn’t it gorgeous?
FYI, I’m loving the book so far; I’m only a couple chapters in, but I’m relating to so much of what Schenone went through in her search for family heritage vis à vis Genovese ravioli–from the basic lack of interest on the part of her American family to her pilgrimage to the Old Country.
Grazie mille Karen!
I’m also reading two other books that were sent to me by She Who Blogs blogging buddies:
from Karina of Candid Karina and Creative Karina
and
from Qualcosa di Bello of Piacere, Write Away, Dog Blog, and Snap 366.
These books are both *fantastic* reads (as are those blogs–check ’em out!). It’s taking me a while to get through all these books just for lack of spare time, but I’m truly savoring every stolen moment I have with them.
I can’t thank my book fairies enough–as I’ve mentioned a few times, English-language books are just not easy to come by around here.
But I even have an Italian-language book fairy! Back for my birthday Shelley of At Home in Rome sent me the Italian version of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist (L’Alchimista), which I finished last week.
Ya’ll I read the WHOLE thing. In Italian! And it took me well under a year! Woohoo!
Plus? I *loved* it. I can’t wait to read the English version now too.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think?
And what are you reading now?
Come on! This is as close as I get to browsing through a bookstore these days.
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
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