Pizza Per Tutti

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

I had heard some chit chat from my cousin about a new little pizza joint on Main Street. We drove by it a couple of times and the decor and overall feel of the place peaked our interest.

We planned a date last Friday to check it out. Pizzeria Farina.

They open every day at 5 and stay open until they sell out of their freshly made pizza dough. Such a clever idea.

No booze, just adorable little drinks. Chad got the Chinotto and I got the Lemonade, of course.

You go up to the front and order your pizza, then you take it home or grab a seat at one of their communal tables.

I was losing my mind over the decor of this place. I just happened to be reading a blog that day where they were interviewing these two guys about their apartment. They called their design style ‘Modern Farmhouse’. For the first time in my life I finally figured out what my design style was called. I knew what I liked but I never knew how to describe it. The pizza place was designed in this exact style, Modern Farmhouse. It reminded me of my days spent in vintage houses at Burnaby Village Museum mixed with my Italian lifestyle. I would have created a home under one of the tables if I could.

The pizza. Sweet Mother. I had a craving for mushrooms and ordered the Fungi pizza. I’m so glad I did. Mushrooms, Cheese, Red Onions, Roasted Garlic, and Arugula. Best thing ever. It had so many amazing flavours.

Chad got the Calabrese, naturally. The black olives were a nice touch. The crust was utterly perfect.

I took some leftovers home and they wrapped them up in Deli paper. I lost my mind, again. Now all I want to do is buy a roll of Deli paper and make all my dinner guests take home care packages all wrapped up in Deli paper.

OMG. Stop killing me with your adorableness!

I told Chad, this is the place where Hipsters go to be Italian.

Pizzeria Farina

In Life, he who risks nothing, gains nothing.

I know that Vancouver now has a million Italian pizza joints, but this is an experience you need to try. It’s the only pizza place where you can actually call in your order and take your pizza home. It is adorable and cozy. The pizzas are simple but amazing. You can buy freshly baked bread, oils, sardines, and cans of tomatoes.

Pop in, have a pizza, fall in love.

Love is a 4 Letter Word

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

A couple of months ago I came across an article about my co-worker Lindsay and her fiance talking about their relationship. She told me that the author was looking for couples to interview and asked if I would be interested. I gave her my contact info and a few weeks later I had the pleasure of meeting Adina the author, and Sam the photographer.

We gave them wine and made them pasta and talked and talked and talked. It didn’t feel like an interview, it felt like having a good conversation with friends over food.

We wore our hearts on our sleeve and talked openly about our relationship.

Of course there was too much stuff to include everything, but here is what made the cut.

Love is a Four Letter Word.

Life Update Time

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

I am in no mood to look at houses, which is the weirdest thing ever considering I have the time to look at houses. We have decided to somewhat postpone our search, considering that it is Christmas and our time is better spent with family and friends. As well, there are a total of zero houses on the market worth looking at right now so really we don’t have a lot of options anyways. Whats even weirder is I have no desire to look at any interior design websites or watch any sort of home shows on HGTV. I guess it feel like we are finally settled in my parents house and the thought of doing that all over again is a bit overwhelming. I kind of just want to hibernate for the winter.

I have finished unpacking all of our boxes, I just wish we would have had more space in our storage locker so that the stuff that was in my parents basement could have been moved and stored, leaving space for the stuff we brought it. It is still a bit of a tight squeeze in some place but we can’t really do anything about that. I have, however, taken over the entire spice cabinet with my spices. My Mother doesn’t understand how someone can have that many spices. I don’t understand how someone can not.

I tried to convince my parents to get a real tree this year, you know, since its a special year with us living there and all, but they weren’t into it. Even though I promised to clean up all the needles they still wouldn’t go for it. LAME. I think we are going to set up the tree this weekend and then Chad can stop complaining about how the house is not Christmassy enough.

Work has been insane, for both Chad and I. We have both had to put in our share of overtime which makes it feel like we have no time for anything else.

I have also been stressing out lately about the amount of hair that has been falling out of my head. My pony tail is slowly but surely getting smaller which is the worst feeling in the world. I assumed all my thyroid problems had been solved by now and my hair would return to its original state but I guess that’s not the case. I’ve talked to a few people and done some research online and I think my best bet to solving this problem is to start taking a multi vitamin again. I have an appointment with my Doctor in the new year so I will probably ask him about it then. In the mean time I will try not to stress as the floors get covered in hair.

Tonight we are going to try out yet another new pizza place. This one is probably the most casual of all the ones we’ve been to. I’m excited for our mini date and for Italian pizza.

Oh yea, remember how I was all obsessed with the KitchenAid 13 Cup Food Processor and posted about it 100 times on Facebook. Guess what was delivered to my house Tuesday night?! Oh hell yes. I need to start food processing stuff!!!

Merry Christmas to ME!

Pasta By Hand

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

I saw a posting on Facebook that the Italian Cultural Center was doing their first ever Hands On Cooking Class. As soon as I read that the theme of the class was pasta making, I knew I had to go.

I have been watching Lidia, my favorite Italian, make pasta on her show for months now, but still have not attempted it. This was my chance to finally get going on it.

I was very curious as to who this was all going to go down. A hands on class where 20 people were going to make different types of pasta dough, different types of pasta shapes, and different sauce. How was there going to be room for everyone? How were we all going to be able to make this stuff? Well, I soon found out.

The Sauces

We were divided into four tables of five. From there we watched as Chef Rebecca added ingredients to a Tomato Sauce and Cream Sauce which she had gotten ready ahead of time. She gave us tips on fresh tomatoes versus canned tomatoes and let us in on her secret of using potatoes in a cream sauce instead of flour. Crazy, right!?

After showing us those two sauces she made a Sundried Tomato Pesto and Basil Pesto. The Sundried Tomato Pesto we tasted with some bread. Holy, that was amazing! I am definitely going to make it and post in on here.

As the sauces simmered away she then demonstrated how to make gnocchi, both potato and yam, as well as gluten free pasta and regular pasta.

I would have loved to get my hands in there and make the pasta from scratch as well, but it was super helpful watching the way she made it and being able to ask questions as she went along.

From there our four groups moved onto the actual forming of the pasta shapes. Our group started out with the gluten free pasta which was very hard to work with. Gluten is what keeps the dough together so every time we rolled it out and tried to make shapes it would tear. Now you know why gluten free pasta is so expensive! It was quite the contrast from the regular pasta that we were about to work with.

Next we moved onto the Gnocchi station where we rolled out long strips of the dough, cut them into smaller logs and rolled them out on special tools that added ridges. Oddly enough the best tool we used was a piece of cardboard!

It was neat making them this way. My Mom always makes them into smooth balls, so this was quite the contrast for me. The point of the ridges is to pick up more of the sauce and thats exactly what they did.

The yam dough smelled so good! It was more loose than the potato dough, which made it a little more difficult to work with, but if you were gentle it worked out great.

The third station was making short noodles out of the regular pasta dough. This was much easier to work with!

My strozzapreti noodle got me compliments from the Chef! Oh la la!

Jeremy trying his hand at the Strozzapreti.

Finally we worked on the long noodles! I was in charge of running the pasta dough through the electric pasta maker.

Thankfully I have years of experience using these machine!

Jeremy showing off his work!

After we were done we sat down to a nice feast. They served us Farfalle in both the Cream Sauce and Pesto Sauce the Chef made earlier as well as some of the Gnocchi in the Tomato Sauce. I could had sat there all night long and eaten up every last bit of pasta, it was just soo good.

Pasta Making Fools

It was such a great experience being able to work with the different doughs, getting a feel for them and working them into different noodles. I’m going to have to book a Saturday and just sit in the kitchen all day and try my hand at the yam gnocchi and maybe try doing some ravioli out of the basic pasta dough.

It was also awesome to be able to talk with Chef Rebecca and ask questions and get tips on how to make things, using different types of flour, and where she goes to shop (which, by the way is Bosa, because Bosa is the most amazing store ever).

And yes, I know it seems kind of silly that my Nonna lives three houses away and makes fresh pasta all the time, and here I go and pay for a pasta making class, but I have seen what my Nonna makes and wanted to experience something a little different. I am very glad I signed up for this class and would recommend it to any foodie who wants to try their hand at pasta making!

I love being Italian.

Pizza for the Homeless

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

We had to postpone Matts birthday dinner because life got in the way, so on Wednesday we met up to have pizza at Nicli. Yes, it was the four time I had been there since they opened. What can I say, they make good pizza.

I got there before Matt did, parked on the side of the street and walked to the restaurant. There was a bit of a line but nothing too bad. I could see empty tables waiting to be cleared so I knew the people in front of me would be seated shortly. I put my name down for 2 and waited quietly in the little foyer.

Moments later an older man with a long grey beard and a large wooden staff opened the door. He looked very worn down and a bit out there. I was pretty sure this man wasn’t about to sit down and order a pizza, given the neighbourhood Nicli was in, but then again, who was I to judge.

People started to stare at him as soon as he came in and stood in line behind me. Everyone seemed to know that this man wasn’t meant to be here and was waiting to see what would happen.

He inched his way closer to me and started to mumble. I was definitely not feeling the most comfortable in the world.

The guests in front of me were seated so I moved up now standing in the restaurant. More people could see him now and were staring at us, as if I knew the old man with a long beard and wooden staff. I was pretty sure he wasn’t Jesus.

One of the young waiters came towards us smiling at me as if he knew this could get interesting. He told the old man that the manager would be right with him to find him a seat, treating him as if he was a paying customer even though it was very clear he was not. The waiter was carrying two empty wine bottles that were filled with water to one of the tables. The old man mumbled and laughed calling the waiter a drunk. It was kind of adorable.

I began to worry a little though. This man was most likely homeless and seemed to have some mental issues. I was concerned as to how the manager would deal with him. Would he kick him out, knowing that he wasn’t meant to be here? Would there be a scene? Would the man yell and get aggressive? Though I’m sure they have had to deal with homeless people and people with mental issues before, given the fact that they are located on Cordova Street, I was still concerned with how the scene was about to play out.

The manager, who is usually very serious and professional, came up to us in a playful mood. He smiled at me and asked if we were together. At this point everyone who was having dinner in our near vicinity was watching us. I smirked back at him and replied, No. It was like we were all in on the same joke. This man wasn’t supposed to be here, but we were all playing along like he was. The manager turned to the man and asked him how many people were in his party. The old man started to laugh and then mumbled something to him holding up his staff. He then quickly turned around continuing to laugh as he left the restaurant. “Is that all you had to say to me?” the manager said back to him laughing. “I can’t believe you waited that long just to say that to me!”. Everyone laughed in relief that what could have been a very confrontational interaction was instead light and playful.

The manager turned to me again laughing. “You sure he wasn’t with you?” “Haha, yes I am sure!”.

He then turned towards the other guests waiting in line taking down their information. He came back to me and said “Don’t think that I was making you wait just because I though you were with that guy. Your table will be ready shortly.” I laughed back at him. “No I didn’t think that at all!”

I was quickly seated and Matt showed up a few minutes later, missing all the entertainment.

The pizza was wonderful, as it always is. As we were leaving the manager came and opened the door for us.

“I hope dinner was good!”

“Yes, it was. Thank you!”

“Say Hi to your Dad for me!”

I looked at him puzzled. Was he being so friendly to me because he thought I was someone else?

“You know, the Wizard!”

“Bahahaha!”

“Do you think he put a good spell on me or a bad spell on me?”

“Oh, he definitely put a good spell on you!”

“Hahah, I think so too! Have a good night!”

“Haha you too!”

Amazing.