Where the Streets are Paved with Pizza

Just got back from a great trip to Italy and Switzerland along with the Shrinking Nerd. I decided ahead of time i was going to indulge in local treats but avoid excess carbs and enjoy the trip.

We ate pizza almost daily and usually could get them to split one for us. They are all very thin without too much gooey topping and so good. We also ate a lot of gellatto and often got a plate of assorted cheeses for lunch. I drank a bathtub's worth of wine - impossible to find any bad wine and some of the cheaper stuff was among the best. We walked and walked looking at quaint villages, great views of the matterhorn, palaces, castles, gothic churches and all the stuff you think Italy would be. Love the place and want to go back. Also ate swiss chocolate.

Learned a few things on the eating scene. First, when traveling, avoid the mundane carbs like bread and potatoes so you can enjoy a few goodies like gellatto and swiss choc.  Second, there are some things that are too sweet! I actually pitched some amaretto gellatto that was sickeningly sweet and wanted to spit out this one chocolate cookie thing but couldn't do so gracefully. Third, exercise really matters. I didn't track calorie intake but with pizza and two gellattos in one day sometimes i know i would have gained a ton had we not walked so much. many days were well over 10k steps and 15 or more flights of stairs as per my hubby's fitbit.  Fourth, eating refined carbs and sugar does indeed increase hunger and cravings and i wanted to eat everything in sight on the airplane back so I now gotta do a few days of de-carbing. Fifth, life is so good without this weight. I never could have gone running around at 10,000 feet in the alps or climbed all the stairs and walked so much or waited in lines and stayed on my feet for so long had i been at my former weight. I would have had to skip a lot of things.. Sixth, not too many fat people in Italy (at least out and about) and their grocery stores only have small sections devoted to chips and junk food, though there is a lot of pasta. I think they don't get fat because they walk a lot, eat regular meals, and don't have chips and snack foods much.

We went to this really fancy Grand Hotel in Stresa where Ernest Hemingway used to hang around. I mean it looked like a baroque palace. We got a bottle of wine and they brought snacks with it. It was: pistachios, fine olives and FRITOS! We laughed our heads off that this super fancy place with waiters in tuxedos would offer fritos on fine china with white linen napkins.

Well its good to be home and I hope I can get back to the routine of responsible eating. Enjoying catching up on the posts - (now that I am in a reverse stall which i sure hope is temporary) hope to be back on oh more.

Frisco, can you please create a healthy yummy pizza?

Diane

Diane, sounds like a wonderfully and simply divine trip! Look at cafe frisco. Frisco just posted a flatbread pizza about a week or so ago. I can't remember the name of the bread he uses. I have never found it here, but others were familiar with it.

Hey Diane,

Sounds like you and nerd had a great trip !!!!

Surprises me how people can eat cheese, wine, bread, paste, cheese, fatty cured meats, gelato and stay skinny?????

I have my fav deli shop in Bologna Italy that has the best mortadella.

Here are a few of my fav "on maintenance" plan friendly pizzas based on Lavash flatbread. These are really good and don't taste or feel like a "replacement".

frisco

was looking for these on cafe frisco. whats the sauce and cheese? looks great, thanks for posting the pix. diane

Although these would be within WL numbers, I haven't done them for Cafe Frisco because the Lavash is......well.... bread.....

I tend to make these when I have opened a jar of my fav marinara from Trader Joes, a 3 cheese pomodora......pretty good numbers and tasty. I add small diced tomato to put some freshness into it. Normally I just use string cheese cause I always have them in the fridge and they last a long time.

Lavash pizzas are great for cleaning out the fridge with leftover stuff.......

I like this version also...... Eggplant Parm Pizza

http://www.lapsf.com/cafe-frisco/?p=471

I love this one...... Italian Caprese Meatball

http://www.lapsf.com/cafe-frisco/?p=528

frisco

Here is an interesting pizza at the Milano Linate airport in northern Italy.

This just says, keep the crust thin and anything goes...... I still gotta try green beans on mine !

frisco

in Streza we went to a restaurant that had a pizza on the menu with french fries on it with other stuff.  we got a more traditional one which was great. D