The Yum Yum Factor

It feels like I have missed a year in yum when, in reality, it has only been a couple of weeks. I mean, I had plenty of yum going on but I just wasn't sharing it here, on the blog. If you follow me on instagram, facebook or twitter, I was certainly sharing... HEY, I GAVE FAIR WARNING TO EVERYONE THAT I WAS GOING TO BE POSTING A SHIT TON OF PHOTOS FROM MY TRIP SO YOU CAN JUST SHUT IT. Anyhoo, our trip to Portugal was absolutely amazing and we certainly ate lots of delicious things that I will be sharing over the coming weeks but for now, we will just start with the homecoming. Our good friends, The Hoffelby's, are a mixed couple. Yes, the husband is Canadian and the wife is American. Since we came home on July 4th and we a trio of zombies all day, we went over to their house for a July 5th belated fourth of July dinner. I made these clams to go with their feast of smoked and bbq'd things, beautiful salads, an amazing ice cream cake and lots and lots of vihn...

Last Friday, we couldn't agree on a place to eat dinner and found ourselves driving around aimlessly when it hit me -  Aprile Bambina Cucina  ! Shack will never say no their grilled caesar salad so when we can't figure out what we want to eat, this is one of those places that always solves our dilemma. It was almost full when we got there so it was lively enough to give it a nice, festive atmosphere but not so packed that we couldn't get in without a wait. Shack had the grilled caesar salad, as always, and it was just as delicious as ever. I think I have talked about it before but it really is so tasty. I love the smokiness that you get from the slight char on the wedge of romaine, then comes the saltiness of the crisp disc of pancetta, follwed by the creaminess tartness of the salad dressing and finished off with the crunch of the toasted slice of bread. LOVE I almost didn't order the tomato basil soup because it sounded kind of boring but I really wan...