While visiting St. Louis, we were treated to a night out by foodies Jim and Linda Reed (who happen to be my parents). They suggested an Italian restaurant called Trattoria Marcella. It sounded good, and I was excited to try a new place in my hometown, but what I found there was beyond good.

You’ll have to excuse some of the food photography. The cozy atmosphere included low lighting and I took most of the pictures with my phone…but I just had to share this experience with you! You can find the menu describing all of these dishes here. To start, we feasted upon the best fritto misto in the world. Light, crisp, and delicately fried calamari and spinach dance with the flavors of lemon, garlic, and asiago. We also ordered a shaved brussels salad to share as an appetizer. These thinly shaved brussles sprouts were mixed with fontina and toasted almonds and tossed with a lemon rosemary vinaigrette. Both of these appetizers were outstanding.

And now, the entrées. We’ll start with the straw and hay dish. This pasta consists of two different noddles: egg (straw) and spinach (hay). The pasta sauce was so creamy and rich, and had a unique flavor from the marscapone cheese. This dish also included coppa ham, crimini mushrooms, and sugar snap peas.

Next up is the lobster risotto, one of their off the menu specialties. This risotto was velvety and packed with flavor with large pieces of lobster nestled throughout the dish.

The veal marsala was great. Thin and breaded veal complimented by mushrooms, roasted peppers, semolina gnocchi, and spinach. A little heavy on the tomato sauce but still delicious!

Finally, the lasagna napoletana. One of us had to get the lasagna, right? It’s how you classically judge a good Italian restaurant (that or eggplant parmesan). This lasagna was a BEAST! It was a few meals in one. The layers of housemade lasagna noodles, Italian sausage, lean ground beef, ricotta, mozzarella, balsamella, and tomato sauce came together to make an outstanding meal that sung Italy’s praises.

Phemonal. You can’t get closer to Italy when visiting St. Louis (and it’s not even on the Hill!). After dinner, we headed down a few blocks to the world famous Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. I don’t know how else to describe Ted Drewes other than that it’s the best custard in the world. People flock to this retro stand each summer to enjoy this St. Louis specialty. When my family had visitors from Germany visit St. Louis, they saw the large gathering of people and thought it must be a “political demonstration.” My mother calmly assured their guests that it was just ice cream!

It is the creamiest, smoothest, most decadent custard known to man. When you order a concrete, they turn the cup upside down with the custard inside to show how thick it is. I always get the banana-heath concrete, and Neil really likes their brownie concrete.

St. Louis is such a wonderful culinary city. Can’t wait to go back!

We did it! We successfully completed the 10 day pledge from 100 Days of Real Food. Here are some reflections about how it went.

Neil felt that he was eating more frequently because the food he was eating burned off faster. He felt like the first few days he had more energy, but then as the pledge progressed he felt as he normally did. Most of the recipes on the blog were great, but let’s be honest, there is no substitute for real baked goods. With real sugar. One switch he didn’t mind at all was using whole wheat flour to bread fish- as far as taste goes, there was really no difference than using white flour. We both really liked the whole wheat pizza crust and white gazpacho, too.

I feel like we have a much better understanding of how much food we consume is processed. Also, we were amazed by how much false advertising there is. “All Natural” and “Made with Whole Grain” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s made with 100% whole grain. You really have to read the ingredients to learn what in the product you’re eating. I enjoyed learning about the differences in oils and grains. I didn’t lose five pounds, but I did lose a few. I think this is partly because I was eating so much cheese and flour (even though it was whole wheat flour) than usual. What we were eating wasn’t bad, but still, the calories in the peanut butter, cheese, fruit, etc. all added up.

Overall, the pledge was pretty easy to follow. We made simple changes to what we were eating to make it real food. Sugar was replaced with honey, and we didn’t miss the sugar in our morning coffee. White flour was switched to whole wheat flour, and we made all our own snacks and sweets. Actually, we ended up cooking even more than we usually do. We can both see how this pledge would be hard to successfully complete if super busy with work or school. You really need to have time to cook, plan meals ahead, and taking the time to look at ingredient lists. We both felt that we had more energy and were benefiting long term from these simple changes.

Here are some questions we had for Lisa, the creator of the pledge:

Why is five the magic number when considering how many ingredients are in a product? If a product has six natural ingredients, is it still not considered real food?

Wild fish is recommended, however, many markets are now encourage buying farmed fish in order to promote sustainability. And would farm fish near to your home make it local? And more desirable?

On a similar topic, why can you eat seafood from miles away but not organic beef from miles away?

Our future plans: Incorporate more whole grain. Substitute honey for white sugar when possible. Read labels. If there are a million ingredients we can’t pronounce on the back, don’t buy it, even if you can get the product free with your excellent couponing skills. It was an eye opening pledge, and we’re excited to shift our thinking and our eating to a more healthy lifestyle.

We are currently on day 6 of the 10-day Real Food Pledge from 100 Days of Real Food. The point of the pledge is to understand what you are eating, how much of it  is processed, and how you can make simple changes to lead a more healthy lifestyle. Some of you have already been following along on Facebook as we post updates and we ask that you keep following along! Here are the rules of the pledge directly copied from her site:

What we CAN eat:

1. Whole foods that are more a product of nature than a product of industry
2. Lots of fruits and vegetables(we recommend that you shop for these at your local farmers’ market)
3. Dairy products like milk, unsweetened yogurt, eggs, and cheese
4. 100% whole-wheat and whole-grains (find a local bakery for approved sandwich bread and check the Understanding Grains post for more info)
5. Seafood (wild caught is the optimal choice over farm-raised)
6. Only locally raised meats such as pork, beef, and chicken (preferably in moderation)
7. Beverages limited to water, milk, all natural juices, naturally sweetened coffee & tea, and, to help the adults keep their sanity, wine and beer!
8. Snacks like dried fruit, seeds, nuts and popcorn
9. All natural sweeteners including honey, 100% maple syrup, and fruit juice concentrates are acceptable in moderation

What we CAN’T eat:

1. No refined grains such as white flour or white rice (items containing wheat must say WHOLE wheat…not just “wheat”)
2. No refined sweeteners such as sugar, any form of corn syrup, cane juice, or the artificial stuff like Splenda
3. Nothing out of a box, can, bag, bottle or package that has more than 5 ingredients listed on the label
4. No deep fried foods
5. No “fast foods”

Happy Mother’s Day! We are far away from both of our mothers this year, and we so wish we could share these cupcakes with those wonderful, amazing, and beautiful women! These sweet treats are simple to make and look fabulous at a Mother’s Day brunch or tea. This recipe is on many blogs, so I’m not sure who deserves the original credit. The decorating process does take a while, so plan ahead and consider it a teachable moment about patience. Enjoy! And hurray for moms!

First, prepare a cake mix according to the cupcake instructions. I tend to overfill cupcake liners, so the strawberry mix I used made 20 cupcakes.

While the cupcakes are cooling, cut lots of mini marshmallows diagonally. You’ll need about 12-15 marshmallows per cupcake.

While the mallows are still sticky, dunk them in colored sugar.

Place them in a bowl.

Begin the decorating process. Spread a thin layer of frosting on one cupcake.

Then take the marshmallows and place them around the edge of the cupcake.

Add another layer close to the first circle, then one more layer close to the second. Again, you’ll need about 30 marshmallow halves per cupcake.

Repeat this whole process with the remaining cupcakes. It’s best to set up an assembly line for the whole process. Here is my assembly line in action!

Beautiful!