More from Boston...

Ok so Grace is teething and woke us up wimpering at 4 am this morning so my post may be a little rambling. But I wanted to make sure that I got it all down before I forgot... So when I last posted Bryan and I had just left Cape Cod for Boston. Now we get to the reason that Bryan and I don't like driving in boston. We just kept getting lost. We get into Boston at around 10:30 and try to find the turn off for our hotel. We miss it. We end up crossing over the Harvard Bridge and can't find a way back. So I keep trying to enter street names into google maps to maybe get us back on the right track, but Bryan keeps driving around. By the time we reach the hotel it's 12:30 and we're both exausted and I've lost patience. We check in and Bryan parks the car in the pay garage. This costs us 32 bucks a day and yes I still am a little bitter. Our bags however are taken up by a nice man named Willy who tells me what to check out and where to find the whole foods. (we never go) We go to bed and wake up the next morning...

Saturday: We get up get dressed and I google map the address for the North End Food Tour. According to Google Maps its less than 2 miles away so we decide to walk. We leave an hour before we're supposed to be there and start our trek. It's a beautiful day and the walk is pretty nice. We get to see a cool suspension bridge, where the celtic's play, Paul Revere Park and Memorial Park. Joel calls us at around 8:30 to see where we are I tell him we're on our way and we should be there in about 5 minutes. http://www.lovelesschristian.com/gallery/Around-Boston We get to the address and realize that this is not where we are supposed to be. We're in a really nice residental area and not the liquor store we were supposed to meet in front of. We walk up the street and run into a very nice man walking his dog. He tells us that google maps led us astray and that there is another Cross Street accross the river. That is where we are supposed to be. Luckily there is a shopping center right down the road we jump in a cab and drive to the Cross Street in Boston not Cambridge that is only two blocks from our hotel. We make it on time and meet Joel and go on the tour.

Now the tour was really interesting, but pretty dry. When we did the southern comfort tour in New Orleans they cracked a bunch of jokes and it was very entertaining. This tour was way more informative but not as entertaining. This was a food tour it was not for the casual person who may or may not be interested in italian cooking. It was for an all out foodie and because of the mix of history and food I loved it. I think Bryan and Joel gained a bit of knowledge, but I know Bryan did not think it was worth the money.

So the first place we went to was across Cross Street to the Rose Kennedy Park. We learned about why the food in the North End is the way it is and the difference between italian and italian american food. We learned the meanings of the 1st, 2nd, and Salad Courses and what to drink before, during and after dinner. We went to a bakery called Maria's http://www.northendboston.com/marias/ and had some of the pastries...I highly recomend the amaretti cookies. They were awesome. Then we went to a general store where we learned about licorice root, salt packed capers and roasting your own coffee beans. It was a pretty cool store and I had a list of things I wanted to buy, but alas it was on to the next location.

This turned out to be a basketball court where we learned about the community bath house and about how the buildings in the area did not have their own bathrooms until the 1950's . At this point we were given some licorish candy that was very intense. Next was the vegetable stand where we learned that only the grocer would handle the produce and that you want to buy male eggplant because they have less seeds and are less bitter. They also have a round spot on the bottom of the plant oposed to a slit like spot that marks it as female. We learned about fennel and that its name in italian also means transvestite. We also learned how to cook broccoli rape (saute it in olive oil, with lemon and garlic) and ate figs with the fennel. I love figs and fennel and remember eating wild fennel on camping trips in San Francisco which Bryan tell me is crazy and that I should stop eatting weeds.

Next we stopped at a wonderful deli http://www.salumeriaitaliana.com/where we learned about balsamic vinegar, olive oil, pasta, meat, cheese and olives. Lets just say that black olives from the can are not the healthiest food in the world. We also learned that we could have poisioned everyone last year with our herb olive oil so we are doing it differently this year. We learned that real balsamic vinegar needs to be aged for 12 years and has to go through vigorous tests. Most real balsamic vinegar costs about 100 bucks for a 5 ounce bottle. The stuff we get for $4.95 elsewhere is just red wine vinegar with carmel coloring and sugar and you should look to make sure that the bottle has grape must to get the intended flavor. Now you may be saying that we are crazy and that you would never pay 100 bucks for a bottle of vinegar...We agree...but it definately does taste better and they sell vinegar that has been aged for 11.5 months for $38 bucks. We also had some awesome olive oil that tasted like fresh cut grass and then had a peppery bite at the end. Bryan said it was like eating grass and then 30 seconds later some one stabs you in the back of your neck. These are his complements and people wonder why I have some self esteem issues :) We also learned about pasta and how you should look for pasta made with brass dies rather than teflon because the brass cut pasta absorbs the sauce better and tomatos that are canned with D.O.P. on the label. This way you know that they are from italy although the ones from meier farms are also very good. We got to eat panchetta that melted in our mouths, panchetta cotta (cotta means cooked, biscotti- cooked twice) which is like baloney with pistacios in it, and some cow and sheeps cheese. Oh and during our tasting this one woman came up who was from the neighborhood and also tasted the stuff too. She thought it was something the store was doing not a tour.

Next we went to the wine store http://www.vcirace.com/ where we learned about pre-dinner drinks (vermouth, red or white), and after dinner drinks, grappa, lemocello, sambuca, amaro, amprivito. It was very interesting and we got to sample some of their lemocello which was nice. Afterwards Joel, Bryan and I walked to meet my parents and we went to Ernesto's Pizza. The pizza was awesome and my mom says that she is ruined for life. During our time there the guy we think may have been the owner got into an arguement with some other guy and then some guy side swiped two cars. My dad could not stop staring and commenting on the 1st guy's jewelry. It was pretty funny.

Afterwards we went to the MIT mueseum http://web.mit.edu/museum/ where we saw some really cool robots, information on smart cars, zebra fish and cancer, holigrams, and mecanical artwork. It was really really cool and Bryan's favorite part was the holigram of space with a telescope that when you got close to the telescope you could see planets through it. It was pretty cool. My favoite piece was one of the mechanical ones that had scraps of paper that looked like they were flying. Joel and I agree that the mechanical art was the coolist part.

At this point we parted ways with my parents who had to drop off their car (we decided to keep ours a couple of days more) and we went to go and pick up the motorcycle...We got lost, but finally found the place and rented the bike. Afterwards we met my parents for dinner at Legal Seafood where Bryan had the spinich wrapped salmon in a dijon mustard sauce and stuffed with duck and mushrooms...yes my husband ate mushrooms. Afterwards we went across the street ate at finale which is a desert resturant. We had the whole nine yards and everyone had a taste of everything. It was really nice. Then we went home slept and got up at 5:00 am to go on our motorcycle ride....That deserves it's own posting so I will post on it this afternoon.