50 Shades of Delicious: 2 Chewsy for the Catwalk

What have we been most anxious for all summer (other than our trip to Italy)?  The highly anticipated debut of the newest Marination outpost in our backyard in West Seattle-- ma kai, which means along, near or beside the sea in Hawaiian.    The new location, ma kai is aptly named, as it sits where the former Alki Fish and Chips was located at Alki's Seacrest Boathouse (owned by Seattle Parks and Rec) right on the edge of Puget Sound with a killer view of the Seattle skyline. Marination is co-owned by Kamala Saxton and Roz Edison.  Their Big Blue food truck shot to national fame when their Korean spicy pork taco won the Good Morning America national food truck contest in 2009.  We've been big fans for a long time as both of us love their Hawaiian-Korean fusion food.  It gives us both that everyday aloha feeling.  Ro even featured their food at her big Flirty Thirty birthday bash this past January. So it shouldn't be any surprise that...

Orvieto is one of the most picturesque Umbrian hill-towns set high atop a sheer rock like a bride and groom atop a wedding cake.  The town is located in the middle of Italy between Florence to the North and Rome to the South.  While in Orvieto most of our dining was done at the villa.  However, we did have a dining out food adventure worth mentioning. While we found it challenging to find food establishments the first few days of our stay in Umbria, it was hard to miss the looming 12th century Gothic "castle" that was converted into a hotel and restaurant called La Badia . We later learned that this was not a castle, but instead a former monastery.  Ecstatic to have found an open restaurant on Sunday, we anxiously booked a reservation for fourteen.  Little did we know until later, (queue the dum...dum..dum background music) the language barrier came into play, and the receptionist misunderstood fourTEEN to be four. The hotel still uses old fashioned keys ...

Our first glimpse of Orvieto amongst the Le Velette vines Town of Orvieto Harvest Time Le Velette  One of the movies we watched before coming to Italy was Under the Tuscan Sun.  It gave us a preview of what life in the Italian countryside might be like.  But honestly, how do you imagine a week in a Umbrian country house on the grounds of a centuries old Italian vineyard?  Add fourteen American women, the guest of honor celebrating her half century mark and throw in a farm yard cat and you've got a recipe for a very unforgettable experience. Birthday girl! The star of this Umbrian story is Ms Betsy Bruce who hatched the idea of inviting her friends to share in celebrating her half century mark.  She contacted her former tour guide of Rome, Cecilia, whose family has owned Le Velette Estate for several hundreds of years and arranged to rent one of the homes on the property and host her friends for an Italian birthday celebration. ...