Detox Diets

Today was a fabulous day. Nothing too spectacular really happened, but it was just a great day.

After all the fried carbohydrates we consumed over the weekend, our apartment decided to go on a detox diet. We failed. We all woke up pretty early so we could stop at a market on our way to school to pick up some fresh fruit to start the day. We ended up at Roscioli’s bakery/pizzeria and I consumed this delicious chocolate pastry. Detox fail. We did make it to the market, but I was so full from the pastry that I didn’t buy any fruit I originally intended on purchasing.

Our side trip lasted a tad bit longer than expected and we ended up being twenty minutes late to class. In this timeless nation, it really didn’t matter. Everyone else was just as late as us, if not later.

Diana gave us a short lecture and attempted to help us upload our blogs. We then headed over to GLUB for a presentation by Laura Ravaioli. In case you don’t know who she is, like many of us circa a few hours ago, she is the Italian version of Rachael Ray. She showed us a few clips of her show in which she talked about foods specific to different regions in Italy.

After her lecture, she made us a very special dessert specific to Italy. It was originally described to us as a sugary pretzel that was served with jam. Little did we know that it would be a funnel cake. Yet another detox fail. I’ve never had funnel cake with jam, but the blueberries only make it more sugary and delicious. Seriously, you need to eat funnel cake with blueberry jelly. You won’t regret it. She also passed out the recipe so we would be able to make it at home. We all gladly took the recipe, only to realize that it was in Italian. It’s worth the translation into non-standard units because it was just that good.

We spent the afternoon working on a group project, which consisted of typing up notes about the various pizza establishments we have visited in the past weeks.

Our roommate Jen’s birthday was tonight, so we went out for a fabulous and fabulously cheap dinner. It was at a casual, yet fancy sit-down restaurant, but it was exactly what I wanted/needed. In fact, they served chicken: the magical meat this is completely absent from any and all Italian diets. I was so happy that finally had a delicious and healthy meal that I devoured it. Detox success?

The rest of my evening will hopefully be consisting of catching up on sleep and final episodes of TV shows that I’m missing in the U.S. Heck, I even tried to watch Secret Life (in Italian) at the pizza place yesterday. My translation of it didn’t work out too well, so hopefully I can find Chuck in English—I’m missing our favorite nerd herder.

Tomorrow is a pretty casual day. We have class in the late afternoon and Eileen’s cooking us a fiesta dinner complete with fajitas, guacamole and salsa. Chipotle is never far from home.