shave ice & gelato

One more entry for Bologna and then I will move onto Rome. The food in Bologna is definitely one of the highlights of this wonderful city. Here are a few pictures that I took during my afternoon there:

I was leaving for Italy in two weeks with tons still to do when I was first asked to start this blog to document my travels. I had no time to think up a "catchy" name. I chose a title that would describe my trip. Once I returned from Italy and started adding posts about Hawaii, I decided it was finally time to change the name of my blog. I wanted something that represented both Hawaii and Italy and so I came up with the idea of "shave ice & gelato" because it represents two unique treats - one relating to Hawaii and one relating to Italy. I hope you like it.

Just about everyone knows about gelato, but I am not sure if everyone knows about shave ice.

So, what is shave ice?

I have heard people trying to compare it to a slush cup or a snow cone. It is neither a slush cup nor a snow cone. It is soooo much better.

Snow cones and slush cups are usually made from ground ice. What makes shave ice unique is the way the ice is cut. You start with a block of ice. As the block of ice spins around, the razor-sharp blade "shaves" the ice making a soft fluffy texture. The "shaved" ice is then packed into a paper cone.

I found this video on YouTube which demonstrates how shave ice is made:

Once the ice is packed into the cone, various flavors of syrup are then poured on top. Because the shave ice is so fine, the flavors absorb into the ice rather than settling to the bottom of the cone.

When ordering a shave ice, you are faced with many choices. First, you must decide if you want a small or a large shave ice.

Next, you need to decide if you want just shave ice, a scoop of vanilla ice cream at the bottom of your cone, azuki beans at the bottom of your cone, or a combo of both ice cream and azuki beans. When I first heard of beans with shave ice, I could not imagine why anyone would want to have beans with shave ice. Once I tried it, I understood. The beans are not like regular beans. They are sweet and so ONO when mixed with ice cream and shave ice.

Finally, you must decide on the flavors. You can usually have three flavors poured on top of the ice. Two of the most famous shave ice places, both located in Haleiwa, on the North Shore are Matsumoto's and Aoki's. You will always find a long line at both of these shave ice stores. Below are the flavors each offer.

Matsumoto's offers:
Strawberry, Pineapple, Lemon, Coconut, Banana, Vanilla, Root Beer, Grape, Lime, Lilikoi (passion fruit), Orange, Honeydew, Melon, Mango, Raspberry, Coffee, Watermelon, Bubblegum, Cotton Candy, Pinacolada, Banana Cream, Lihing Mui, Lychee, and Cherry.

Aoki's offers:
Strawberry, Banana, Pineapple, Lemon, Lilikoi, Coconut, Rootbeer, Vanilla, Melona, Chocolate, Blue Hawaii, Coffee, Bubble Gum, Cherry, Lime, Orange, Watermelon, Guava, Mango, Rasberry, Cotton Candy, Li Hing Mui, Grape, Strawberry Cream, Lychee, and Pina Colada. As well as the following Sugar free flavors: Strawberry, Banana, & Watermelon.

And here are my dear friends Katia & Guido enjoying a shave ice from Aoki's:

After work today, I decided to brave the craziness of the supermarket on my way home. Holiday shopping is always a special treat here in Hawaii. I headed to Safeway, hoping that I would find the perfect little turkey for Thanksgiving. Once a cart was located in the parking lot, I took the plunge without a list or even a solid plan. It was quite an adventure wheeling my cart up and down the aisles, looking for just the right ingredients and trying my best to remember what I needed to get to make my mom's ricotta and egg based Italian turkey stuffing.

Once my cart was full I found the line that looked like it would move the quickest and picked up a magazine to browse through while I waited. The People's Sexiest Men issue was out. There sure were lots of yummy guys inside this year's edition. If I was really thinking, I would have found the longest line.

As I reached the check out stand, I had this flash of grocery shopping in Italy. I must say that one of the things I am very thankful for here in the US is that we have baggers, especially on busy days.

There are only two events that have really intimidated me when experiencing life in Italy, the check out stand at the grocery store and the post office. In the grocery store, I always felt pressure having the correct change ready as big bills were not popular, letting the girl know that I needed bags and locating those bags, and of course bagging everything quick enough so that I did not hold up the line. I always failed when bagging and usually was on the receiving end of a few dirty looks. Even though shopping is not one of my favorite memories of Italy, it is always fun reminiscing, even about more stressful experiences.

When I left the grocery store, the rain began. This was one thing I was prepared for as rain was predicted and the skies were pretty gray when I arrived at the store and so at least I had my raincoat on as I loaded my cart and two cars fought for my spot.

I usually am not too thrilled about driving in the rain, but today, I experienced the most glorious sunset in my rear view mirror with a rainbow in front of me. This was my second "thankful” experience after leaving work.

I usually take the back roads when heading home from Safeway. The final stretch before turning into my townhouse complex is a long straight 2-lane road. The sun reminded me of a blazing ball of yellow fire. It slowly set behind me into the road. The sky was a deep pink and the rainbow was in front of me to my left. I was so mad that I did not have my camera with me. I thought about running in to get it when I got home, but just as I pulled into my parking space, it started to downpour. I was not as fond of the weather at this point as I had to lug my groceries all up to my place. By this time, the sky was getting dark and the sun had set. I guess you will just have to picture this glorious sunset instead.

Before my mom passed away, she typed up all of her recipes. This is something my family is very thankful for. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, my mom's stuffing was always the first thing to disappear and it was one of my favorite things she made. Some have tried to make this on the side, but it only comes out right when stuffed inside a turkey. I would guess that another type of bird would also work. Here is my mom's "famous" Italian Stuffing recipe just as she typed it, which was passed down from my grandfather's family:

TURKEY STUFFING, ITALIAN STYLE

This should be enough to fill a turkey from 15- 25 pounds. If the turkey is smaller you can fill the neck too.

After hearing so much about the cookbook, Dolce Italiano, I decided I needed my own copy. While waiting for Amazon to ship my book, I read all the blogs featuring the recipes and imagined all the wonderful recipes I would make. Once my book finally arrived in the mail, I then realized that I was poorly equipped with the necessary ingredients and equipment needed to actually bake anything.

It took a while to gather up some of the necessary ingredients, including kosher salt, polenta flour, vanilla beans. I then realized I only owned three pans for baking: a muffin pan, a loaf pan, and a rectangular pan, as well as a couple of cookie sheets. So, back to Amazon to order some pans. I ordered a wonderful new springform pan, a 9-inch square cake pan, and a zester and my dad gave me a bundt pan that he did not use.

While waiting for my new pans to arrive, I made the Ricotta Pound Cake. It was a pretty simple recipe to follow. I ended up cutting the recipe in half because I ate some of the ricotta I bought before I finally found the Vanilla Beans at a reasonable price. I think I also might have taken it out of the oven a little too soon, but I still found it to be quite delicious. I cut it up into pieces and put most of it in the freezer, taking it out and heating it up each morning to have for breakfast with my morning espresso.

My new pans arrived last weekend. Once they arrived, I realized why I owned so few pans. Each one takes up storage room! One of the reasons baking is such a challenge for me is because of the very limited space I have in my kitchen. I live in a tiny studio. I have three tiny counters in my tiny kitchen. Each one 15 1/2 inches wide with items already on them. Because I have limited storage space, many of my baking pans are stored in my oven. This is where my new pans also ended up. When I bake, I have to take all the stored pans out of the oven. They end up balancing on top of my pans on the stove as well as overflowing onto a couple of my counters. I also use these two counters to hold the bowl for the dry ingredients and some of the other ingredients needed for the recipe. That leaves me with one counter (15 1/2 inches wide by 12 1/2 inches deep with my espresso machine already on this counter) to use to actually do the measuring, chopping, and the mixing with my little hand mixer, because of course I have no room for one of those nice Kitchen-Aid mixers. I even use my sink at times as another free space before it gets filled up with dishes. There of course is no room for my cookbook, so I put that in my living room/bedroom area and go back and forth to refer to it while baking. If you are getting the picture, it is quite a challenge to actually try to bake anything in my kitchen. I thought about taking a photo of all the pans balanced on my stove, but I would have had to clean my kitchen first to do that (you know, how you clean before the maid comes to clean?).

On Saturday, I finally got up the courage to attempt one of the more complicated recipes; the Citrus-Glazed Polenta Cake. This is one of the recipes I have wanted to make since getting Dolce Italiano. I can proudly announce that I successfully created a delicious Citrus-Glazed Polenta Cake. I did not take a picture of it however as it fell in the middle while cooling. It did however taste quite wonderful and even better the next day!! It tastes like a gourmet cornbread cake. I love cornbread!!

If I had to pick just five favorite foods to wind up with me when I was stranded on a deserted island, I wonder what they would be...

1. Strawberries

~ my absolute favorite food. I love fruit in general but my absolute favorite fruit and food in the world is strawberries. I love, love, love strawberries. I could eat them morning, noon, and night. I don't like anything on them, just plain strawberries. I remember going strawberry picking with my mom when I was little. My mom would have 3 or 4 bowls overflowing with strawberries and I would still be on my first bowl with only about a quarter of it filled because I was too busy eating all the strawberries.

2. Ravioli

~ cheese, ricotta & spinach, pumpkin, any filling except for meat, served with burro & salvia (butter & sage), tomatoes, or pesto.

3. Gelato

~ none of this American gelato crap, only authentic Italian gelato for me. Coffee, pistachio, hazlenut, passion fruit, peach to name a few of my favorite flavors.

4. Pizza

~ there are a few pizza places in Boston which I would say make a good pizza pie, and I am sure there are some good pizza places in New York City (have never been), but the pizza in Italy is what I drool over!! My favorite types are pizza margherita and pizza con pepperoni (the vegetable peppers…not the meat kind).

5. Seafood



~ Maine lobster, steamed clams, lobster roll, fried clams & fried scallops. I sure do miss New England seafood!

What five foods would you choose?

This post was inspired by Krista's In and Out of the Garden blog entry...
who was inspired by Ed Levine's New York Eats blog entry...

(today was my 100th blog post!!)

Manuelina is a restaurant in Recco famous for it's focaccia. I first heard about this restaurant and the focaccia they make from my Italian teacher, while taking a night class here in Hawaii.

In 2003, I spent a few nights in Camogli. After arriving in Camogli, one of the first things I did was to inquire on how to get to Recco. I was told that Recco was not that far and so I decided to walk there. It was a long walk (about 3 KM each way). The town of Recco itself was not that far, but Manuelina was located at the far end of Recco from Camogli.

When I finally arrived at Manuelina, I was rewarded with the most wonderful focaccia - focaccia col formaggio. This focaccia was not anything like the typical focaccia one has seen or eaten. It was thinner and filled with a delicious cheese mixture. The taste reminded me of my mom's blintzes. The only thing missing was the plum jelly to put on top.

So, if you are ever in Recco, make sure to visit Manuelina and order some focaccia col formaggio. They also have a take out window just for the focaccia.

Happy Easter!! ~ Happy Sunday!!