Pinos Sandwiches/Salumeria Verdi in Firenze (Florence)

1 Uber ride, 2 long flights, and 2 train rides and we're finally in Firenze (Florence). Last night my parents, Bryce, and I settled into our hotel and kept ourselves moving in an effort to ward off the jet lag and any spur of the moment naps! We had our first true Italian meal at Pinos Sandwiches/Salumeria Verdi. 

Italy and Greece

Well friends, it's approaching midnight and our alarm clocks are set for 5:00 am. We leave tomorrow for 2 weeks in Europe and I feel like I've done more today than in my previous 30 years of life!

I've read, planned, mapped, and poured over travel guides. My phone has been a constant source of weather updates, travel tips, exercise tracking, and so on. I even borrowed maps from the library for each city we're visiting. Did you know that you can do that?

Brunch at Cafe Nola - Bainbridge Island, Washington

Hello my friends! Are you still there? Is this thing on ((taps microphone))? It's been entirely too long! Three months, you say? I am truly sorry. 

Things are going well although I have been quite busy. My career has kept me jammin'. Our house has undergone some serious remodeling, resulting in our using the small, dishwasher-less kitchen in our downstairs mother-in-law suite. I've completed 2 Italian language courses and have planned an adventure to Italia for next month. Excuses, excuses, right?

Not quite. Life has been hectic and crazy and AWESOME. I've considered quitting blogging. I've wanted to start a new blog altogether. I've oscillated between the two! Have I made a decision? No. Am I sure that I will keep eating, cooking, and writing in the future? Yes.

My goal is to make things a little more simple around here - write (more often) about delicious foods, post photos that make me happy, and keep myself laughing. Won't you check back again soon? For now, a sweet little post about brunching with babes...

From Seattle you can hop on a ferry boat and escape the city hustle and bustle for a more laid back lifestyle on any of the nearby stops or islands. We took the ferry on a grey Sunday morning over to Bainbridge Island to meet up with our friends for breakfast. 

Florida

This year has been a big one for birthdays amongst my people. Mom and Dad both turned 60 and Bryce turned 30. To celebrate their "150th Birthday" we spent a week together in Siesta Key, Florida. (Prior to my move to Hawaii, that's where our family vacationed on the regular.) We got right down to the fun having immediately with a trip to the Daiquiri Deck just hours after we arrived!

T Rex Cake - Happy 30th Bryce!

My husband, Bryce, turned 30 this weekend. We spent 3 glorious days in Whistler [British Columbia, Canada] with 8 of our friends. We ate, drank, skied and/or snowboarded, and enjoyed this delicious and hilarious cake!

Traditional Irish Breakfast

Last year we were able to visit Ireland. We spent the most of our time in the large city of Dublin, although we also adventured to the smaller towns of Bunratty, Doolin, and Galway. In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day please allow me to share with you my most favorite meal of the trip.

Disney World Waffle Sandwiches

In November (2014) we made a family trip to Disney World in Florida. What began as two Grammies and my Mum (a non-Grammie) chatting over breakfast about bringing their grandkids to Disney one Sunday morning rapidly turned into a gang of 15 family members! With just 5 kids and 10 grown ups, we traveled from Hawaii, Washington, and Pennsylvania. There were Mommies and Grammies, Aunts, Uncles, Godparents, siblings, and cousins.

Sfogliatelle

While in Rome we made a friend who is from Naples. He kindly made us a list of all of the places to see and foods to eat while visiting his hometown. He'd told us specifically about a pastry that was a breakfast favorite. We weren't checked into our Naples hotel for ten minutes before Bryce walked into our room holding one. I had my lens on it in seconds and my crumby fingers on it a moment later! They're called sfogliatelle and they're the most memorable thing I'd eaten throughout our entire trip.  

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta

I've wanted to go to Italy for as long as I can remember. To say that our recent visit there lived up to my expectations is truly an understatement! The country was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, the people were so caring and friendly, and the food was delightful. 

In the little imaginary Italy in my head, I'd drink a lot of coffee + wine, enjoy plenty of pasta, and do most of my dining outdoors. Reality was very, very accurate to my little dream! What I wasn't expecting was that each and every meal would be spectacular, regardless of price, city, or restaurant location. I'm excited to relive them and share them with you through this little blog. 

Get ready because this is a photo heavy post! It's actually quite like Green Eggs and Ham as I'll be showing you all the times we ate pasta and where.

Bryce and I had lunch on the streets of Roma at an adorable little spot called Di Qua. Your first option is Italy's restaurants is always acqua (water) with or without gas (carbonation), to which we vote NO. On this particular day Bryce was up for some day-drinking!

Pizza in Napoli

[Get ready for another post beginning with my singing!]

In Napoli, where love is King, where boy meets girl, here's what they sayyyyy...

...When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's amore!

That's Amore is one of my favorite songs. In college I worked at a bar that was owned by an Italian guy named Tony. We'd play that song during last call while turning the lights on, letting the drunkards know it was time to go. The next year I was a patron of that same bar and the sound of That's Amore somehow became an unnwelcomed burden rather than a call to rejoyce in tip money and freedom! 

Last year at our wedding we played That's Amore as one of the very last songs at our reception and we all sang along. Now I'm sure not everyone knows or loves the song and that's OK. I know there's something we can all agree upon and that's pizza. Do you know where the college kids and all of the bartenders all went after That's Amore played and the bar closed? That's right, they all went to get pizza.

True Neopolitan pizza (although it was our second favorite, see below for photos of our actual favorite!)

Gelato in Italy

Guess who's back? Back again. Ang's back, tell a friend! [Sung to the tune of Slim Shady.]

Bryce and I have recently returned from our magnificent 17-day honeymoon to Italy and Ireland. Unsure of where to begin with regard to all of the delicious food we ate in Italy, I suppose our ritualistic gelato tasting habit is a fitting starting point. Our first day is a great example of any typical day in Italy.

First - visit a historic site. In the case of day 1, it's the Spanish Steps. 

Saying things like 'this place wasn't built in a day' and 'when in Rome' are encouraged, although not necessary!

Mangia Mangia in the Motherland

We are on our first flight of our honeymoon trip as I'm writing this, from Seattle to DC. After a brief layover and some airport dinner (my expectations are low) we will be off to Italy and landing in Rome! We've collected, borrowed from the library, and been given many travel books surrounding this adventure and I've taken plenty of notes. Thank you Catholic School eduction! Most notes are regarding what to eat. You're shocked, I'm sure of it.

                      

During our visit in Idaho I spent several hours relaxing in the sunlight jotting down the best tid bits of the many, many books.

Camp Blogaway 2013

Camp Blogaway 2014 is wrapping up today and I'm pretty bummed that I'm not there this year. I was so excited to go last year, although I never did any follow up posts to tell you all about it! Please excuse the delay, as 2013 was a bit overwhelming with working full-time, planning our own wedding, and moving from Hawaii to Seattle... At long last, here's the scoop on what goes on at a three-day-long food blogger camp.

Olympia and King Solomon's Reef

Ohhhh blogs - they an ever changing beast, aren't they? As people bloggers go through different phases in life they often decide to rename or refresh their little corner of the internet, or start a new blog altogether. I feel 100% confident in my decision to focus on food and the memories tied to sharing food with loved ones and I don't think that's something I'll ever lose interest in. Everyone eats everyday and there's no changing that! 

Something I'm striving for here at Aloha Yinz Mangia is a better balance of recipe posts and adventures outside of my own kitchen. I'm not afraid to admit that reading food blogs isn't always the most entertaining thing to do. Sometimes you're too hungry to even look at food. Other times you just need a recipe and don't read all of the other fluff. There are even posts worth reading which contain a recipe that you know you'll never make, but you'll read and enjoy regardless. 

I love reading blogs and writing this little blog, my friends. Capturing meals and memories will never grow old, although sitting at a desk at 9 pm after having done so for 8+ hours earlier today isn't always a walk in the park, I'm always happy when I've posted another adventure or shared a delicious recipe.

All of that leads me to tonight's post. Lisa and I both began working aboard the Battleship Missouri (aka USS Missouri, Mighty Mo, BB-63) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the exact same day. She's loud, fun, and doesn't sit still so naturally our 8-hour-shift of orientation was made more fun as a result of her presence! We rode the shuttle bus onto base for weeks together while waiting for our background checks to go through, entertaining each other all the while! If there was ever a day where Lisa and I didn't quote Mean Girls together, I'll skip the Spring Fling. She eventually moved back to her hometown of Olympia, Washington and Bryce and I were able to visit with her a few weeks ago during our first trip to the Capital City.

Posing with that sign seems so sadly ironic for friends who met in Hawaii

Pittsburgh Christmas 2013

There's really nothing like going to your home at Christmas-time! This trip back to Pittsburgh was the longest and best in years. I'd never been to the famous Pamela's Diner in the Strip District and I have finally marked it off of my list!

These girls and I have known each other since elementary school and we had a great coffee date with a side of breakfast food! Diana, Megan, Mallory and I tried a little bit of everything, strawberry stuffed pancakes, omelets with extra cheese, and Pamela's renowned lyonnaise potatoes.

Seattle

Please allow me to interrupt the late and sporadic posts surrounding our wedding for a big, giant life change. As always, when it rains it pours and we found out just a few weeks prior to our big day that Bryce was offered a promotion through his job to Seattle, Washington.

Out of Town

Living in Hawaii causes people to ask, with a lovely tone of annoyance: When you live in paradise, where do you go on vacation?


The answer is simple: Back to where you (or your significant other) came from.


Bryce and I bid "Aloha" to Hawaii for a week long vacation, although we got the fun started while still here on Oahu... After working last Friday we checked into a 3 day Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend where we did a lot of talking, thought sharing, and eating. Between our little learning sessions we were fed buffet style meals and given free reign to a the largest assortment of snacks since Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes in the desert! Using our phones was discouraged so I have only one photo of one of our meals from the weekend. 


On Sunday we graduated from our encounter, spent just a few hours at home, then went to the airport for our next adventure. After so many serious chats and a weekend of pondering our purpose in life, we were happy to enjoy a cocktail together in the airport bar!

We're Engaged

It's officially official - Bryce and I are engaged! We tried to tell as many people in person as we could before letting it become public knowledge via facebook - the jumbotron of gossip.


Bryce and I celebrated our third anniversary (of dating) back in August. In our three + years together we've had many conversations about getting married, during which I'd mentioned several things (huge hints) that I didn't think were noted so well by my tricky fiance:

• I'd always dreamed of a proposal/engagement somewhere romantic, outdoors, and crowd-free

• Being so far away from my family sucks and if we were going to get engaged, I'd want to tell them in person rather than making a list of people to call

Bryce totally had me believing that we weren't getting engaged until after he finished school (in May) so when he popped the question on a hike on December 9, I was shocked and excited. Okay... maybe I had a feeling something strange was going on that morning, but no sooner than that! We went on a sunrise hike and he proposed at the top, it was incredible, romantic, and perfect - dirty sneakers and all.

There was only one other hiker around and he stopped to take some pictures for us. We had to catch him quickly before he left and I'm clearly still crying in these photos!

Ghirardelli Square

The first time I went to San Fran I was in eighth grade and I got to leave school early one Friday to catch my flight. It was SO COOL then and it was SO COOL this year too, even as an adult. One of my favorite memories of the first trip was at Ghirardelli - specifically walking through the store's entrance with my Mom over and over again and collecting a free sample each time!

Despite growing up in California, Bryce had never been to nirvana that is Ghirardelli! I insisted that we go so we... took a trolley in the wrong direction, got off in a shady neighborhood, boarded a bus, rode for 30 minutes, walked for 10 more, and finally made it to Ghirardelli Square!

Thanksgiving in California

Bryce and I just returned from a 5-day trip to California where we spent Thanksgiving with his family. It was a fun-filled, jam packed vacation with entirely too much food!

Our first Thanksgiving dinner was with Bryce's Dad and his side of the family in Visalia, CA.

11 month old Hunter really enjoyed his mashed potatoes!

We had turkey and ham, plus all the fixin's!