Banana Cake with Mocha Frosting and Salted Candied Peanuts

July 03, 2011 by Monica in Baking, Cake, Cookbooks, Desserts, Sweets

When we arrived last Monday from our Mexico vacation, both Tom and I were holding each other up – yes, were relaxed and loosed and ready to take on the world. But having just spent most of the day traveling in ferries, transfer buses and planes, by the time we walked in our house, we were exhausted.

We both called our respective work and told them we were going to take the day off.

And we slept.

A lot.

Actually, he slept more than I. Because, my body knows that when I have plenty of time to oversleep, my internal wake up alarm kicks in and there is nothing that stops me from waking up and not being able to fall back to sleep. I usually go nuts trying to accomplish this, until I simply give up and get out of bed.

Then I walk around antsy all day.

Frittelle Di Semolino Dolce - Sweet Fried Semolina Snack

July 01, 2011 by Monica in Appletizers & Snacks, Desserts, Family, Family Cookbook, Sweets

Today, I started to clean my home office and came across a box and inside I stumbled unto my old recipe notebook that I started when I was twelve years old during one of my visits to my paternal grandparent’s home. When we moved to the states, my sister and I would travel during the summer months to visit them in Venezuela. And during one of those visits, I decided that I would start writing my Nonna’s recipes, so I could bring them back and make them.

As I opened the old falling apart yellow notebook, memories rushed back at me

Mexico in my mind

June 29, 2011 by Monica in Travel

We been back for 3 days now, and I’m not kidding, we miss Mexico. We had a fabulous time. We arrived on Sunday to gray skies and light showers, but, that did not stop us from taking the ferry over the water to Isla Mujeres and feeling our stress level lower with each rolling of the waves. By the time we piled in our taxis and landed in front of our rental house, we were all fully relaxed and looking forward to the next seven days of crystal waters, historical adventures, strong drinks and filling our bellies with typical Mexican food - oh my good GLORIOUS FOOD!

The cloudy skies open up the next day to electric blue skies full of sunshine and light ocean breezes. Perfect weather for poolside lounging and ocean front meditation. Since, my goal was to completely relax during this vacation,