I DIE

As the great Rachael Zoe would say, "I DIE." That's right. This pizza is so good that you could die of a heart attack while eating it and it would be the best last meal that you could ask for. It's from Dante's pizza on Indianola. If you've never been there, go there. Now.

Food from last week

Homemade pizza from last week...



Cheese pizza






Pepperoni pizza







Fresh mozzarella with campari tomatoes and homemade pesto with basil from my Nonnie's garden (my personal favorite)







Here's my Friday afternoon cocktail invention. This drink has slices of lemon, lime, and clementines as well as a splash of cranberry juice, a splash of OJ, one shot of vodka, a maraschino cherry, topped off with Diet 7 Up. Okay, as I typed that out, I realized how disgustingly sweet that sounds but it was actually pretty good.



I had Chipotle for lunch one day last week. This buritto contains chicken, black beans, cheese, corn salsa, tomato salsa, hot salsa, and tomatillo salsa. I've never tried the tomatillo salsa before and I didn't care for it. It was too watery and it threw off the composition of the rest of the burrito.




This is a vegan falafel with white bean hummus from Dragonfly Street Food in the Short North. Holy shit, was this good. It didn't taste like traditional falafel, but it was really good nonetheless.

Truth For Sanity comes over for dinner & other stuff from this week

I've been getting over a sinus infection and bronchitis, so I spent most of the weekend and the beginning of this week cooking things that were bland and easy to prepare.

A couple of examples - noodles cooked in broth and topped with a little bit of cheese and browned under the broiler.







And mac & cheese out of a box... FYI - This is the three cheese variety featuring cheddar, colby, and blue cheeses - in powered form of course. This was really tasty!










Recently, Truth for Sanity (the band that my husband is in) came over for dinner. Just as I was about to throw food on the grill, the gas tank went out. Balls. Plan B... I had to cook everything inside on a grill pan. No easy feat when you are cooking 5 brats, 6 hot dogs, 2 turkey burgers, and 4 cheese burgers. I was so flustered that I forgot to a take a picture before serving dinner. What you see here is the aftermath.



On Monday, the kids and I had dinner with 3/5 of Truth for Sanity. We met Tony (my husband, the babies-daddy), Bill, and James at Iacono's. I don't know what the hell has been wrong with me lately but I only took a picture of the appitizers and not the pizza! FYI - If you are in the Hilliard area on a Monday, stop by Iacono's for their specials featuring $1 drafts, 1/2 price appitizers, $2.50 individual sized pizzas, and soup & salad bar with 1/2 a sub for $4.50. Good deals!

Happy Birthday to My Brother! 4.25.2009

I am posting a ton of pictures from my brother's birthday dinner because my brother is awesome and and the food was really good.

We had dinner at Dante's Pizza on Indianola Avenue in the Clintonville area for my brother's 29th birthday. Tony and I both loved the pizza and subs from Dante's II when he lived in the Westerville area. We've long since moved to the industrial west side (aka Hilliard) and haven't had Dante's pizza in years. Needless to say, we were very excited to eat there. If you've never been to Dantes, you should go there immediately and eat as much as you can. And bring cash or a check because they don't take debit cards.

Ian is a rockstar. I love that he was wearing sweatbands on his wrists all day. Later in the evening, he put the sweatbands around his ankles and changed in to his favorite Batman pajamas and went to sleep. Awesome.

My sister, Stacey, is sitting with Ian. She is the most photogenic person I know. She's literally never taken a bad picture (except for her 8th grade school picture when she a mouth full of braces and an unfortunate pair of Sally Jesse Raphel eyeglasses). Our cousin Olivia says that Stacey always looks "glamorous" and I think that is an apt description.


Another picture of Ian (being weird) and Stacey (being glamorous).


I think Tony has been reading my blog and has decided to smile more often in pictures!


My mom seems to be incapable of keeping her eyes open in any photograph. I took this picture and told my mom to smile again and keep HER EYES OPEN for the next picture.


And here's why I love my brother... I took the second picture and my mom kept her eyes open but my brother intentionally shut his eyes and then laughed his ass off at me while I bitched at him for ruining the picture. He's a funny guy.



The *only* downside to this restaurant is that they don't serve chicken fingers. Ian doesn't like thin crust pizza, or much else for that matter. He always orders chicken fingers when he can't get pizza with a thick crust. No-go here, so he opted to drink a Coke and be goofy.



The house dressing at Dante's is the shit. It makes iceburg lettuce taste like magic!



My brother and his wife order french fries and fried mushrooms. I'm not a fan of fried mushrooms, but they looked good. I tried a few of the fries and, again, magic! The fries were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and steaming hot.



Subs! Tony got an Italian and I got a ham and cheese. Holyfuckingdeliciousness! Just like we remembered from the old days!



Pizza! We ordered a cheese pizza and another pizza with 1/2 sausage, 1/2 pepperoni. Holyfuckingincrediblygoodpizza! They make their own sausage at Dante's and it's incredible. The sauce is the bomb. Yeah, I said it. The bomb. My mom, Steve, Mandy, and Chris ordered a couple of other pizzas with various toppings. I didn't try any of their pizza, but I assume that it was equally as awesome as ours.