Today was a cheat day. I'll just say it. But I knew it would be, and I planned for it. This morning, I had a brotein bar, not out of necessity, but more so out of convenience.
I woke up, ate a brotein bar, and got to pickin'! I along with Sidney and her mom, sister, and aunt picked a bunch of Montmorency cherries. These were to be used in cherry pies, of course!
After a while of picking, Scott drove out to Sidney's house and he, Sidney, and I drove to and met my mom at Zona Rosa for Festa Italiana, the annual Italian-themed festival of food, entertainment, and Italian motorsport.
In all honesty, most of the Italian cars were indeed Ferraris, with most belonging to members of the Ferrari Club. There were, however, quite a few Fiat 500 Abarths, as well as some Alfa Romeo Spiders. There were also, to my surprise and delight, two De Tomaso Panteras.
After gawking at the cars for a while, we headed over to where most of the food was.
Sidney and my mom spotted a few people with delicious-looking meatball sandwiches, which is what they, too eventually found and ordered. I, however, decided to try an Italian steak sandwich with gorgonzola chips from Johnny Vivace's.
It was as good as it looks. And even though I'm not much one for blue cheese, these were very good!
Next, I stayed true on my vow to get a funnel cake at every event that offers one.
This one was made fresh, and with plenty of powdered sugar. There were also particularly thick parts in this funnel cake, and those were ahhhhh-mazing!!
With this, I concluded my culinary experience at Festa Italiana. I had more Italian food in store for later!
We then walked back by the cars, then went to Michaels. Sidney, Scott, and myself then tried to figure out what to do, since we didn't want to eat dinner so early. We were still pretty satiated from the food we had just eaten, too. So I started driving. I then mentioned to Scott that there was an amazing burger place (LC's) just down the road. I was simply telling him this for future reference, but he then suggested that we get burgers. Sidney perked up when she thought of getting a malt. So we drove to LC's, but only to find that they're closed on Sundays. So what were we to do? We drove to the next best option: Town Topic! Sidney loves the malts at Town Topic, and I think the burgers are some of the best. When we got there, Sidney ordered her malt, and Scott and I each ordered a doubled cheeseburger and a shake. The shakes came out first, and mine was chocolate.
The shakes are nearly as thick as the malts, and just as good, too. Next, my double cheeseburger, with bacon and onions, was done.
It was just as good as I remember. Every time I eat these burgers, I end up wanting to eat like 30 of them. And I could, too. Seriously.
After this semi-impromptu burger stop, we drove around the Plaza area attempting to do some car spotting. There wasn't really anything good, so we moved on. I then took Scott on a tour of the mansions of Mission Hills, hoping to see some good cars along the way. Disappointed in people's propensity for Jeeps and Mercedes C-classes, we moved on to some newer developments. The farther south into Johnson County we got, the better the cars got. Eventually, we ended up seeing several Maserati Gran Tursimos, some antique Mercedes sports cars, and about 65 BMW 7-Series sedans. We also saw several nice Audis, including an RS7. But in a last-ditch effort to spot something really nice and more exotic, I took Scott to a neighborhood where I know there to be a Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale. Unfortunately, this car was nowhere to be found, but, as we were leaving, I spotted a couple peekers under a mostly-closed garage door.
It may be difficult to tell in this stalker-ish picture, but there is a Ferrari 360 and a Ferrari 458 backed in behind that garage door. We called this a success and proceeded to drive back up north to eat dinner.
But not just any dinner.
Pizza.
But not just any pizza.
Leo's Pizza!!
Apparently, I'm the only one besides my parents that actually thinks Leo's pizza is any good. It's St. Louis-style pizza, meaning it's got a thin cracker crust and provel cheese. The cheese is a process cheese combination of provolone, Swiss, and white cheddar. They even put it on their salads.
Sidney, claiming she strongly dislikes this cheese, gave me hers from her salad. Oh well, more for me!
We ordered a large pizza, with half just cheese and half with everything.
I could literally eat an entire large pizza's worth of just the cheese pizza. That's how much I like it. As I've explained to people before, this particular pizza isn't just my favorite pizza ever, it's one of my favorite foods ever. If someone asked me what my favorite thing was that I'd ever eaten, one of the first things that would come to mind would be Leo's cheese pizza.
And Sidney, with her iron-clad will against provel, only took one bite of pizza. So Scott, who actually did like the pizza a lot, helped me eat the whole thing. And eat the whole thing we did. I was reasonably full afterward, but by no means was a stuffed to the point of wanting to stop eating this unbelievably great pizza. Like I said, I could eat an entire large Leo's cheese pizza. And, you know, I just might do that sometime. Be on the look out for that sometime in the future.
But as we finished our pizza, Scott reminded me that proper cheat day is complete without dessert. I confessed that I had thought very little of possible dessert options, so I asked him what he had in mind. He said that his favorite dessert is milk and cookies, so we headed back to the Mecca of cookies: Sidney's kitchen.
A short time later, after showing Scott how to properly mix up a proper batch of chocolate chip cookies, and after Sidney had expertly baked them, we had:
But this was a special occasion, as all cheat days are. This is precisely why Scott and I picked up some ice cream for...
...ice cream cookie sandwiches!!!
The ice cream we chose was:
Yes, you read that right. What Jimmy Fallon's beaming mug so proudly represents is both caramel ice cream and chocolate ice cream with chocolate cookie swirls and "gobs" of cookie dough (both chocolate chip and peanut butter). So, pretty much, warm cookies with slightly colder cookies in the middle.
Sidney's cookies weren't out of the over for than 5 minutes when we dug in. Two warm and soft cookies with a bunch of delicious ice cream in the middle is, I agree with Scott, one of the best desserts imaginable. But I'll qualify this by saying that they must be Sidney's cookies. This was so good, even with the ridiculous mess I was making of myself, that I had another. So, in total, I had 4 cookies and however much ice cream made for an adequate ice cream sandwich. I also had a glass of milk to wash it all down.
All in all, I'd call this a Cheat Day success story. Tons of good food, some cool cars, and some quality time with family and friends is what life is all about, or should be, anyway!!
Like seriously, family, friends, cars, food. What more could anyone possibly want?!?!?
Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food. Family, friends, cars, food.
No comments:
Post a Comment