Holiday time!

Holy moly, where did the time go?  Life has been a whirlwind for my family and I lately.  We lived in a hotel for six weeks, and now we've finally moved into our beautiful apartment...that has six broken sinks, one squirting toilet, and a partridge in a pear tree.  But we're finally in our home, and the adventure can officially begin!

You might be wondering what my family and I have been eating since we moved to Florence.  If you guessed pasta, you would be correct-a-mundo.  I have eaten so many different types of pasta over the last 7 weeks, that it would make a carb avoiding American run for the hills...then hit the treadmill, and maybe some bikram yoga.

It's interesting though.  Italian pasta isn't as heavy as American pasta.  Everything is fresh.  Typically, what you're feeding your family is what's in season.  Farm to table is just the way things are here.  It's not a trend.  It's not some next big thing.  It's the way Italians have always, and more than likely, will always cook.

We're talking about a place where the residents choose to maintain the history of their buildings, rather than knock them down and make them modern.  The art, architecture, and food are some of the most important aspects of Italian culture, and unlike many other countries, Italians don't want to change their culture.  It's amazing to walk down streets, or walk into a shoppe, and find out that it's been that same shoppe since 1706.

So while I'm on this Italian journey, bear with me as I learn the proper ways of cooking pasta, pizza, and other Italian specialties during my family and my time in Italy.

Lesson 1:  There is no brown sugar in Italy.

It's the holidays.  I found myself with a hankering for a giant ginger cookie- my most absolute favorite cookie in the whole entire world.  After a harrowing search, I came upon some vanilla (score!), and I had thankfully brought baking powder and baking soda with me from the US (for some reason it's flavored here.  Odd.).  Then I went on a molasses and brown sugar search.  Some friends directed me to one of the local shops that sells foreign goods.  I jumped for joy.  Silly, silly, naive American girl am I.

It looks like brown sugar.  It even smells like brown sugar (sort of).  But it is not brown sugar.  It's fine natural sugar that sticks together like brown sugar.  Sure, it'll be fantastic for some pumpkin muffins (which I also scored, even though I grossly overpaid for my tiny can of pumpkin.), but honey, it won't work for my ginger cookies.

So what's a gal to do?  Amazon baby.  I pillaged that website like it was no one's business.  I did however, have to come up with a solution to make my little girl who was BEGGING to make cookies happy.

So what did I do when I didn't have the majority of the ingredients I usually use to make cookies?  I made make-shift sugar cookies.

Tune in Friday for a tastylicious sugar cookie recipe that's super easy to make in Italy and the USA!