One of the many evenings walking around the streets of Lido di Jesolo, we came upon a food market.

My mouth dropped when I saw the huge wheels of cheese, not to mention the vast varieties!



My kids complained that it was stinky (children!) until we came upon the breads.  The giant round loaves of breads had us salivating.



Anyone for an entire leg of piggie?



I really had to walk away from the baking gadgets.  I knew that if I started looking, I would have a very hard time only purchasing just one or two.  Instead we grabbed some candy & headed along.

If you have been following me on twitter, then you might know that we are currently "across the pond" in Europe.  We will be here for a couple of months and so I will be blogging our adventures in the coming posts. I know everyone loves it when you pull out the family vacation photo album, right?  ;P

The past several months have been really busy.  I had 3 yearends to finish, hubby was putting in a tremendous amount of overtime and we had to prepare for our trip abroad. Not to mention I had the kids home from school full-time=exhausting. The first thing I said is that we MUST go to a beach to relax, warm our bones and simply do nothing.  I needed to unplug badly so we decided to revisit Lido di Jesolo, which I had posted about last year also.



Lido di Jesolo is a province of Venice, in the Veneto region of Italy.  15km of beachfront makes way to tourism being their main industry.  Numerous hotels, restaurants and gelaterias and once the sun goes down, shopping, music & imbibing.

You think it would be boring to just be on the beach all day long but it wasn't.  Reading, paddle boats, sandcastles, floating on air mattresses, collecting seashells & playing tic tac toe in the sand.




Our daily routine consisted of breakfast, heading to the beach, lunch & gelato, back to the beach, dinner and then plenty of walking up and down the streets hitting every shop and another gelato, of course, for the evening.

We also took advantage of drinking plenty of espresso at breakfast and occasionally in the afternoon while the kids ate their gelatos.  Could you imagine paying 1-1.25 Euro (roughly $1.25-$1.50 CDN) for a coffee or a scoop of gelato?  It's a reality here, probably one of many reasons Starbucks is not in Italy.



Last year we took the ferries to Venice & Burano islands but this time we were content on staying put in one place & soaking up the 30 degree celsius days. Lido di Jesolo has great beaches for the kids as they could venture out further into the water and not worry about it being deep.  Also, the water is calmer with small tides, making it kid friendly.  The glorious blue skies seem to extend right down to the water and I was content to just stare out into the vista, day after day.

I not sure why but I have never been a big fish fan. My parents never disliked it nor avoided having it at meal times.  In fact, I have many memories of fishing & ice fishing with my family. Digging in the garden for earthworms or the putrid smell of larvae bought at the tackle shop.  Hours spent along the shore, watching my parents throwing in a line & the neon bobber floating in the water waiting to be pulled under. During the winter, my parents would scare my siblings and I by driving our minivan onto the frozen water.  You could hear the cracking sounds beneath the tires and I would hold my breath and say little prayers that we do not go under. 

The fish would be reeled in and my father would carefully take the hook out of its mouth. He would get upset if the hook was hard to take out or hurt the fish in any way. I would watch it flipflop around & then in it went, into a large bucket filled with water. More times than not, my siblings and I were playing at a nearby park or laced up our ice skates rather than muster up the patience to actually catch fish.

The basement was where my father would clean & prepare the fish. I remember fish scales glittering in the light. Sometimes he would leave it whole, other times, he would filet it.  My mother would pan fry or bake it and it always came out looking beautiful however, I just could not get myself to eat it.  The fish eyeballs always won the staring contest and I remember the smell bothered me. I recall many a moments of my siblings and I huddled around from the furthest room from the kitchen, our shirts pulled up over our mouth and nose, scowling that the house was stinking.


As I got older, I would slowly try fish but to this day, I still am not a fan. My sister was the only one who seemed more adventurous and willing to try whereas my brother and I would exclaim "We like fish. Tuna! But only tuna from a can!".  Just the other day, I was offered lox at breakfast and I exclaimed "I'm a Pisces! I can't eat my own!" when I was asked why I don't like fish.

Today my children were offered fish fish for lunch at their school.  "Did you eat it?"  I asked.  A big "NO!" came out of their mouths. I smiled, knowing very well my lil tadpoles would not have any of it.  

So this leads me to being creative, for my children's sake and myself! My children love their tuna burgers and it's never a chore getting them to eat it (though, a big dollop of mayonnaise always helps!)

This is my second recipe submitted for Eat In, Eat Out magazine and will be featured on their  facebook page page on October 30.  I will update this post to include the link when it is featured.

Update: Find my blogger spotlight here.

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I am one of the featured bloggers in the fall issue of  Eat In, Eat Out Magazine and you can find me on page 54!  This issue is all related to family and I offered up my smoked ham & cheese pizza bread.  

I haven't found a kid yet who doesn't love pizza so this dish is usually a hit.  It is great for the kiddos lunch box, not taking up a lot of space or being too messy, and it is very easy to make. My children have even assisted me before in rolling of the dough & adding the toppings.  I have tried a variety of different toppings too(ham & crushed pineapple, pepperoni & mushroom or  three cheese).




Tip: If you prefer not to make your own dough, there are various pre-made doughs you can buy at you grocery store to simplify and speed up this recipe. 

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I heard of Jelly Modern Doughnuts also through an episode of You Gotta Eat Here.  As we were walking down the street looking for it, my daughter spotted it first, screaming out "PINK!", which is her favorite color.



Inside plenty of natural light spills in from the glass windows highlighting the hanging pink lanterns among the clean modern furnishings.  Expect higher prices (~$25 for a dozen) as these doughnuts are gourmet, handmade fresh everyday touting quality local & organic ingredients.

The kids and I were glued to the glass case of doughnuts.  We just had lunch and were so full but we were in luck as the doughnuts come in 2 sizes: regular and the smaller 3-bite size.  We opted for the 3-bite size and finally managed to come to an agreement on 4 flavors; madagascar bourbon vanilla, maple bacon, smore's & peanut butter cup.



They were all really good but I'm a peanut butter fiend, so the peanut butter cup doughnut was my favorite of the bunch.  Next time around, I look forward to dipping into their selection of cake doughnuts.

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Jelly Modern Doughnuts
100, 1414 8Street SW
Calgary, Alberta

Leaving our Banff & Canmore weekend trip, we decided to breakup our drive home and stop for lunch in Calgary.

I had first heard of Tubby Dog from a You Gotta Eat Here episode and then I was chatting with my brother who had come back from a trip to Calgary and mentioned it also.



We decided upon the A-Bomb and Sherm's Ultimate Gripper with a side of yam fries.  My kids loved playing the arcade games while we waited for our order. We marveled upon all the kitschy decor and all the retro paraphernalia.



From what I saw on the episode about Tubby Dog, I can confirm that every bit of it is very true.  You better come hungry because they do not kid around.  Their dog creations are out of this world, big and messy but a great experience for everyone.

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Tubby Dog
1022 17 Ave SW
Calgary, Alberta