What a day!

There is so much exciting news to catch up on from the last week but I have to start with last Friday, June 3rd. A couple of really exciting things happened that day.

First: it was my mom and dad's 16th anniversary - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to them!

Second: it was my birthday celebration at school - kids with summer birthdays are invited to celebrate with the class before the school year ends! Mom made a pumpkin molasses cake with cream cheese frosting and baked it in a bundt pan so it was like a giant doughnut that I could share with my friends and my teacher. Mom and dad brought the cake at the end of the school day and we sliced it up - the cake was amazing from my perspective!

Third: when school ended, my mom and dad took me out to the car and handed me tickets for Cirque du Soleil's TOTEM and told me we were all going to see the show right then and there. This was really such a surprise! So many of my friends from school had seen the show and I knew my parents wanted to see it too but mom kept telling me that it was just too expensive and that maybe we could see them next time they were in town. I changed into my dress in the car and we headed for the huge blue and yellow tents down in the Strip district! What a fun way to celebrate an anniversary and a birthday at the same time!

None of us had ever seen Cirque du Soleil before and we LOVED it! The show was STUPENDOUS, FABULOUS, AMAZING, AWESOME, and GREAT! My favorite acts were the Amerindian Hoop Dancer and the Rings (blue, orange, and pink - the girl is especially awesome)! My mom's favorites were the Hoop Dancer and the Russian Bars. My dad's favorites were the Perches and the Russian Bars - and he also liked the variety of "clowns" in the show, especially the Italian one.

Fourth: I knew that mom had made reservations for one of our favorite restaurants that very same night, I just didn't know we'd be seeing Cirque before going. Remember my friend Nico? (I traded him a squishy for the Buddha eraser for my mom for Mother's Day, remember?) Nico's family owns and operates an awesome restaurant on the South Side called DISH OSTERIA. Nico's dad and uncle were there and my parents began the evening with cocktails - dad had a Gin Rickey and mom had a Lavender Lemondrop, funny names for drinks huh? I had pineapple juice. Nico's dad started us off with a crostini with smoked mozzarella, prosciutto, and funghi, which is a Italian word for fungi, which really means mushrooms in this case. The crostini was kind of like a pizza and it was amazingly good - I could have ordered another helping of that for dinner. But . . . I had already ordered some other things.

I began with a really good soup that had cheese tortellini in a house made organic chicken broth with spinach, carrot, celery, and onion. I really liked the soup, it could have used a little more salt for my taste buds and the tortellini was just too filling for me - but that's just me, my parents thought it was the bomb! My parents started with grilled calamari that I almost forgot about because I think they just gobbled it up - all I remember are little white balls.

For dinner, I had marlin carpaccio with rainbow microgreens and HUGE capers. The microgreens were pretty but I wasn't into them (my dad gobbled them up however) and I refused to share my capers! The marlin was unbelievable - I'm a sushi nut, so "unbelievable" is a pretty serious rating.

Mom had swordfish and spinach - she ate the leftovers for lunch the next day and would only give me a small bite. Dad ordered the softshell crab and polenta that was highly recommended by Nico's dad, but he almost ended up with the copper river salmon with asparagus and mashed potatoes. The server - who was fabulous and who my parents have had before - thought dad had ordered the salmon and brought it out for him with our meals. Dad almost grabbed it out of her hands because it looked sooooooo good, but she put in a new order for the soft shell crab before he could grab it. The good thing about all of this is that we got to linger at DISH because our time there just always seems to go way too fast.

And now, for dessert, the highlight of any meal (drum roll please), dad had the famous chocolate bread pudding and I was lucky enough to have the very last slice of mango cake. We knew that Nico's grandma made the chocolate bread pudding that my parents love and say is absolutely amazing - it is served warm with a dollop of whipped cream on the side and a sprig of mint (I didn't taste it)! What we didn't know until later is that she makes ALL of the desserts. I just have to say that the mangoes in the mango cake were unbelievably fresh and you could taste them more than the cake itself. I loved the coconut on the outside of the cake too and my mom and I were like sword fighters with our forks dueling for the next bite. Here's a message for Nico's grandma: YOU TAKE THE CAKE! And to Nico and his family: we LOVE DISH! Thank you for a wonderful meal.

By the way, DISH was once again voted one of Pittsburgh's Top 25 Restaurants in the recent issue of Pittsburgh Magazine - congratulations to a terrific restaurant and family. If you haven't been there, go - but I'll arm wrestle you for the last slice of mango cake!

What a fabulous day I had, I am such a lucky girl!

(PS - I want everyone to know that anything that is written here is absolutely true, from my perspective. For example, I didn't try the chocolate bread pudding - I was too into my mango cake - so it was my parent's opinion that I shared instead of my own.)

I'm out of school now, more to come soon, gotta catch up . . . !