Gelati Grom-ness...

I am an italo-phile. no to the francophile. yes to the...anyhoodlekins.
Had some Grom on the UWS (Broadway b/w 76th & 77th st) w/ Jules-ster--she got the pistachio, I got the crema di grom.

I gotta say--it's a little refreshing, but disorienting to see Pistachio gelato/ice cream not in unearthly green form (see spumoni gardens pics). The pistachio also tasted nutty (as it probably should) and u can really taste the "toasted" side to it. Warm, not too sweet, delish.

My crema di grom is egg cream, Battifollo "meliga" biscuits (which evidently just means they made it with corn flour instead of wheat and...Grom's rather prideful about their snootiness in ingredients), and Ecuadorian chocolate. Some other flavors had Venezuelan chocolate--u should read about the crazy chocolate wars b/w Amedei and Valrhona...it's a little inSANE. **

Here's more of my ice cream b/c you love ze peektures. (Btw...a little too pricey for the sizes--what u see there was 5 bucks each.People are getting uber snooty about chocolates particularly the cocoa content, where the beans are from (likened to the origins of ze grapes and regions for ze wine and whatnot) and of course the recent NYtimes article on the emergence of snooty Milk Chocolate. The site 70% (referring to the % of cacao powder blahblahbl) is a good resource to edumacate urself on fancy chocolates (and buy them!).

In Italy, it was 3-4 euros for gelato the size of 2 of your fits clinging fervently to a sugar cone. Packed fo yo FACE!!) This one is a little...diminutive ain't it :P

I tried the Marrons de Glaces (good, i can't pinpoint the flavor but possibly red-bean-y or taro-y). The stracciatella is a good vanilla/cream-ish with chocolate and whatnot. Surprisingly they had Hazelnut AND Gianduja--but I gues that makes sense since gianduja is essentially Nutella (hazelnut chocolate) whereas the other one is just singular. I'm not a fan of sorbet so...I didn't try any. The Zabaione i think has the egg cream base like the Crema di Grom but with Sicilian Marsala wine.

I've had a few gelati downtown but I dunno...this does taste a lot cleaner/crisper and while creamy, just not as heavy as most gelati. My favorite was this place in Rome (I can't remember the cross streets but this was possibly near Piazza Navona on the way back from the Vatican near the bridge where that castle is. VAGUE yes? Whatebbs yo). Florence gelati was good but for some reason...that one in Rome always stuck with me.
There was a great gelato/coffee shop in the Belmont Shore strip in Long Beach. That you can look up yourself but I think it was called Cafe Roma--dun dun dunnn....

--
**(Valrhona refused to let the Tessieri bro/sis work with them, Tessieri goes straight to make a deal with the chocolate plantation folks in South America to work exclusively for Tessieri's AMADEI!!)

Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn...

I haven't had much time to do anything for the first 7 mos of the year really until I went on a working vacay to England and Paris for the month, then CA for a couple weeks. Anyhoodle, I now had the leisure to go to Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn for part of Labor Day in the city--yes I turned down Bermuda to do nothing locally :)

The last time I went there was with Julia in the dead of winter in my little ZipCar, making pit stops @ Costco and Target, because apparently that's our idea of fun. Serious. Pizza here. F*cking amazing--it's all in the sauce. OHHHH it's all in the sizzaaauce!! (of course a little oregano never hut anybody.) Open 7 days a week even most holidays. GO NOW. by the D train at 2725 86th St. by Ave U in the bk and if by car exit #5 to Bay Parkway off the BQE/278W.

We got lost (*damn you googlemaps!*) but either way it's far but it's the best damn pizza and totally worth freezing our asses off then, and sweating our asses off this past weekend for some fluorescent green Italian ice-cream (not gelato mind you), and the half tray of sicilian pizza on the face of this earth. Being the italio-phile that I am, you know that speaks volumes.

You like the clear shot of my bag? Yeaaaah you do! And the Pepsi product placement. Anyhoodlekins, I usually bring back a pint of Pistacchio ice-cream but I settled for a cone this time--a SMALL. Julia and I both got pistacchio, Jane got the rainbow. O.o even has little chunks in it. Given the heat this labor day weekend, I figured green guck could possibly NOT be the best idea. Plus we brought our dogs. They'd probably devour whole. OoooOhhhhhh my doggies.

That's Hansie (No) Pants and Baby. Also Julia's feet, and my feet in the right picture. You can see my ten dollar flats from urbn start to fall apart :) annnnd *scene*. There will be no pics of people on this site--except minor cut offs in pics :P