It’s true.  I was born with a great sense of direction.  I didn’t have to practice it or work at it, it just came as part of the package of “me”, as much as my brown eyes and blond hair.

I can’t understand poetry.  I am baffled by art.  And I have yet to understand even one quote from the bible (any sentence with “thee” or “thou” in it frightens me).  But blindfold me and spin me around a half dozen times, and I will still be able to tell you which direction is North.

I didn’t know I was like this until I was 10 years old.

We lived in Gardena, a tract home neighborhood in Southern California.  Almost every house on the block had a family with children, and they overflowed into the street after school playing.  In the summer my mother had a tradition.  Every Wednesday she would pile as many kids as she could into her station wagon (no seat belts of course), and head to the beach.  All you had to do was bring yourself and a towel, my Mom brought the rest.

She would drive straight down Rosecrans Blvd., heading west, and then head south a bit until we got to Redondo Beach, not that any of us were paying attention to how we got there.  We always went on the left side of the pier where she would spread out an enormous blanket and we were let loose.

We spent the day running in the water, eating grapes, and getting horrible sunburns that would peel for days.  Later we would walk on the pier and buy candy and look at the lobsters in the tanks.

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When my older sister made it to Junior High, my parents decided it was time to move.

My mom loved antiques and was drawn to an estate sale she had heard about at a house in Belmont Shore (wherever that was). I remember her coming home excitedly and telling us that not only did she buy some stuff in the house, but that she wanted to buy the whole house itself!  She had fallen in love with it.  My father was skeptical.  They spent some time checking out the area and the schools and decided to purchase our house on the corner of Covina and Division.  From our new home you could look down the street and see the beach 2 blocks away.

Before moving, we spent a couple months going to the house on weekends to fix it up. One day I was helping my father paint the upstairs bathroom.  I sat down to rest.  From where I was sitting, the ocean was behind me.  It didn’t feel right. “Dad”, I said.  “The ocean is in the wrong place.”

“What do you mean?” he said.  “Well when I’m sitting down in our old house, the ocean is behind me.  In this house it should be over there,” I said as I pointed west.  “How could it have moved?”

My Dad explained that Long Beach had a south facing beach, and that I was correct that heading to my left would indeed take me west to the Pacific, but heading south would take me there too.  He showed me a map.  (I LOVE maps! They make so much sense!!)

I don’t know how I knew that at age 10, I just did.  It has been a nice gift to have all my life.  I’m rarely lost (at least not physically!).

Nowadays, when the phone rings at La Strada and someone is lost, the whole staff knows to hand it to me and I can direct anyone safely to my Italian restaurant….although, the need for my skill is being phased out now because of smart phones…:(

So, the bottom line is ….. I can get to wherever I need to go, but I KNOW to stay away from art museums because I will never understand anything in them anyway.  I am still trying to figure out what is so great about the Mona Lisa (except for her name, of course!)

I just don’t get it…..but I bet SHE wouldn’t know which way was north, so there!

xoxoxo Lisa

See you soon at my 2nd home, La Strada, home of the best Italian food in Long Beach!!

Feel free to post a comment below about Belmont Shore, La Strada, your sense of direction…or what it is I am missing about the Mona Lisa!!

I hate January 3rd.  I really do.  It was the worst day of my life.

In early December of 1990, I was running errands with my infant daughter and 2-1/2 year-old-son.  I was thinking about a fear that I had had for over 10 years: that my husband Walt would die before me.  He was 20 years older than me, and I had worried about it constantly, especially since we had had children.  But he told me over and over to stop worrying about it, that everything would be fine.  On that beautiful December morning, I decided to let it go, to let go of my longstanding fear and just enjoy the wonderful life that we had with our two beautiful children and our love for each other.  Little did I know that 3 weeks later he would die.

Nothing could have prepared me for that day.  It started out like any other day.  Except that I had been mad at him for a few days before and was barely speaking to him. That morning when he woke up, he found me up with the baby and said quizzically, “Honey? Are we in a fight?”  Well, I had been mad at him but I said, “well, if you haven’t even noticed, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore and we aren’t.”

We smiled at each other. It wasn’t important. Then he said, “I have the worst indigestion.”  That was very odd for him.  He NEVER complained about anything EVER, much less any physical ailments.  It was strange.

But he continued on with his day and took my car somewhere for some brake work. Then he came home to test out some new chicken recipes.  Our daughter was to be baptized on that Sunday the 6th.  Even though he didn’t quite believe in baptisms and all that, he was going along with it for my sake. He had taken off a few rare days from work; he loved to barbeque, and was planning to try out a few new things for that Sunday.

My sister Teresa came over later that day with her 6 month-old daughter Rachel. We decided to take the kids out and have pizza.  I almost left 2-1/2 year-old Ryan with Walt, but thank God we took him with us.

When we returned, I opened the front door and placed the car seat with my daughter in it on the floor.  And then….I looked up and saw my husband on the kitchen floor.  I remember shouting “Walt’s on the floor!” without realizing what this could mean.

I learned that day how amazingly well I operate in a panic.  Even though my heart was racing and I was shaking, I knew what to do.  I grabbed the phone and was already talking to the 911-operator while Teresa stood there frozen.  She eventually got both our babies to the sofa and started reading to them, and kept trying to coax Ryan to join them.  But he kept coming into the kitchen and saying “Mommy, why is Daddy sleeping on the floor?”  The 911 operator was telling me how to perform CPR.

“Mommy, what is Daddy doing?  Daddy, Daddy, wake up!”  I didn’t hear the operator when she said to pinch his nose before blowing air into his mouth.  When I finally did hear it and did it…the result was awful – the gurgling sound, I will never forget it.  A weird “knowing” came over me.

The EMS personnel came and filled my kitchen.  I immediately scooped up my daughter and started nursing her.  I knew on some level that I might be gone for awhile and she had never had formula or any other food.  I kept asking them, “Is he going to be OK?”  Finally, one of them said, “It doesn’t look good Ma’am.”  I appreciated that.  They cut his jacket up his arm to put something in his vein.  (Side note: I love that jacket, I still have it and I used to put it on to feel his arms around me.)

At some point they took him to a local hospital.  I remember taking my children’s pictures from my wallet and pacing the halls, saying “Please, God, please.”  But then I saw a doctor come out and a nurse was following him with one of those little boxes of tissues….and I knew.  He didn’t make it.

I sat with him for a long time.  I put the pictures on his chest.  I thanked him for giving me Ryan and Hannah, and for all the love he had given them and me.  I opened his eyes to see them one last time. They were so beautifully big, and so beautifully blue (both of my children have his eyes).  Finally they told me that I had to leave him and go home. Someone drove me, I don’t remember.

I walked into my house and said to Teresa “he died.”  She already knew.  Then, I went to make the phone calls.  For some reason I called his boss first.  “Mr. Freddolino, this is Lisa Ramelow.  Walt had a heart attack today…and died.”  He gasped and said something I don’t remember, and then composed himself.  He was a nice man and I knew he needed to know.  It is an understatement to say that my husband had an important job at Rockwell International: he was in charge of all of the electrical wiring systems on all of the Space Shuttles as well as all of the information on the 35,000 tiles on each of the Shuttles.  For the previous 3 years, Walt had alternated weeks, one at home and the next at Kennedy Space Center (KSC).   We were both fine with his travelling.  My sweet humble modest Walt, he would never say this, but he was a really big deal at Rockwell, he really was.

Next I called his daughters (from his previous marriage). I love and adore them so much.  Then…his mother.  This would be the 3rd son that she had lost.  I called my sister-in-law; her heart sunk but she said she would tell their mother.

Then….I took my dear sweet little boy Ryan into the bedroom.  “Ryan, honey, I need to tell you that Daddy died today, I know that it is hard to understand, but Daddy will not be coming home anymore.” 

“But Mommy, I thought Daddy was just sleeping on the floor.  Was he broken?”

“Yes honey, Daddy was broken.”

“But Mommy, couldn’t all those men fix him? Daddy could fix anything.”

“I know honey, but no, I wish they could, but they couldn’t fix Daddy.  And he can never come home again.”

“Mommy are you sure?”

“Yes honey, I am sure.”

For weeks after, whenever the mailman opened our screen door, Ryan would forget what I had told him and would run to the door and exclaim “Daddy’s home!!” thinking it was like before. I would have to remind him, “Daddy really loved you and didn’t want to leave you ever, but he cannot come home anymore.”

“Well Mommy, can we go visit him on a plane?  Daddy always took planes.”

“No son, we can’t.”

And on it went.

So now….. so,  so many years later…I still don’t like January 3rd.  And I never will.  But I am at peace with it now.  And here is a strange bit of fate: a few months before my husband died, he was slated to transfer to Johnson Space Center in Houston.  I didn’t want to go there.  But he did, and was excited about the possibility.  If he had lived…. we would have more than likely moved to Texas.  My kids might not have gotten to know their cousins or my parents as closely as they did.

And you know what else?  There would be no La Strada.   It would never had existed as it does now.  And all of you who know me or know each other because of it….none of it would ever have happened.  And isn’t that strangely contemplative?

I will never be happy that my Walt died that day, or that he missed out on experiencing our beautiful children growing up…..but the whole universe would have gone in a completely different direction.  And that is so uncomprehendingly amazing to me.  And it was totally out of my hands….and in God’s.

I count my blessings everyday.  

Thanks for reading about this part of my life….xoxox Lisa

Last week a repairman came to my house.  He went into my son’s room to measure windows.  I explained to him that my son had come home to Belmont Shore for a month and moved his whole apartment into his small room.

He smiled and said, “how old is your baby?”  I answered, “He’s 23.”  He said, “My baby is 24.”  We smiled at each other, in a way as parents that understand the bittersweet feeling of pride and sadness that our children are all grown up, but they will forever be “ours.”

It’s so weird.  God puts a baby in your arms and it becomes your whole world.  You are responsible for making sure it is fed and healthy, loved, protected, and nurtured.  Your baby becomes part of your every awareness.

In May of 1988 I went into labor with my first baby, my son.   I sent my husband off to work because things were progressing slowly.  He returned later to take me to the hospital and I greeted him at the door in…..a bikini!  “Honey,” he said,  “what in the hell are you doing??”

Well, I wanted a picture of how I looked on that last day.   He patiently snapped a few in the backyard.

When our son was born, my husband looked down and said “1-2-3, they’re all there. “  He had no interest in counting the fingers or toes.  Ryan had the bluest eyes I had ever seen on any human being.  I have brown eyes.  That baby looked like it had nothing to do with me, like he was cloned directly from his father.

And so the journey began.   Elementary school, picking out uniforms and doing homework.Middle school:

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Then came the teenage years of long hair and I-think-I’m-so-cool-I’ll-dye-my-hair-jet-black.

Cool (that's not his doll - I made him hold it, haha)

With black hair

Then, one day, your baby turns 18  and leaves to go to college.  Suddenly, you have to stop all of that constant care giving.  You can’t call everyday to ask how they are or you will annoy them.  It is honestly so hard to stop the succession of “I hope they’re OK”  thoughts from swirling in your head.

Going through empty nest syndrome was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  But I did it.

Last week, my little boy moved to New York City.  He is so excited.  I am so happy for him.  I am used to him being gone now, but it will be another level of adjustment to know that if anything happens to him, I will be 3,000 miles away.   I will get used to it.

I’m going to miss my Ryan.

Goodbye son.  I am so very proud of you.  Love, Mom

And I know he’ll be back ……to eat his Steamed Halibut at La Strada!  xoxoxo  Lisa

I’m losing someone.   Sarah is leaving this week.

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They come. They go.  After 18 years in business at La Strada,  I’ve hired a lot of young people and watched them manage their way through young adulthood.  They have,  in turn, each given me something wonderful.

I’ve had 7 Jennifer’s work for me. The most memorable “Jen” recently came to visit me from her home on the east coast.  She told me that when I hired her she was living in her car.  I had no idea.  She went onto say that working for me saved her.  I had no idea about that either.  But I am so very glad.

Kendra, me, and Jen

It was tough when Kendra left, she was such a brat.  I still get to see her though, because she lives nearby.  She is still a brat.  And I love her.

Aoife was so very helpful to me, and Elena was one-of-a-kind, that’s all I need to say!

Aoife, me, and Elena (Hey I know I’m too old to be wearing this, but we were donating food to a 70′s style event!)

There are many many others who come back to visit me at La Strada! I am so very grateful.

Now…… back to Sarah. She came to me 5 years ago.  She was wearing a long skirt and her long black hair was wildly hanging in her face.  She was nervous, but trying not to show it.  I wasn’t sure about her.  My busboy at the time thought she looked like the girl from “The Ring” movie, and begged me not to hire her.  “We won’t be able to answer the phone!” he said, referring to a part of the movie where you die after the Ring-girl calls you. Ha-ha-ha

Click here to see the comparison of Sarah to the Ring Girl

I took a chance, and 3 weeks in I found her to be doing a very competent job. But …she never smiled.  I sat down with her and asked her if she liked working for me.  “YES!”, she answered. “Well,” I told her, “can you please try to smile so everyone will know that?”

She did just that.  Thank goodness I didn’t let her go!

Over the last 5 years, I have watched Sarah become a beautiful confident woman.  She has been a tremendous asset to my business, but more than that, she has been a tremendous help to me personally.  She “gets” me,  she’s thoughtful, positive, and appreciative.

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She is now engaged to her boyfriend Mike, and they will be moving to Simi Valley, closer to his business.  Major kudos to Mike for driving all that way these last few years, so she could stay in Long Beach and work at La Strada.

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But now …………….the time has come.  Her last day will be Thursday July 28th.  The staff will come in and help her close, and they will rock the house until we turn off the music at midnight for Samuel upstairs.

Goodbye Sarah…..we are all going to miss you…. so very much.  Especially me.

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**NOTE: Feel free to leave a comment on my blog if you would like to share your wonderful experiences in knowing Sarah, my favorite server,  at La Strada, my little Italian restaurant in Belmont Shore, in beautiful Long Beach….:)

I went back east for the 4th of July.  I have a lot of extended family there. 

My Mom was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA.  My Dad was in the service and stationed near there.  They fell in love and got married at St. Francis Xavier Church.

When my Dad got a job offer in California, my Mom agreed to relocate there only if she could “go home” once a year.  He said OK.

Personally, I’m glad, because I love being a California girl!

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But the other wonderful part of this was that my Mom took us back east with her summer after summer, so that even though our cousins lived 3,000 miles away, we got to know them and were able to stay close.

Our Grandpa owned a bar close to Ocean City, N.J. and when we came to visit he always did something special….one time he borrowed these ponies for us to ride: their names were Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry.  We thought those were the best names ever!

Later, when we were teenagers, our oldest cousin Bobby (then 17) formed his own rock band.  They played in Grandpa’s bar and we girls were the go-go dancers!  I know that is ridiculous, but I have such great memories of me and my sister Julie, and cousins Patty and Bunkey (above) wearing go-go boots and thinking we were “all that!”  I think I was 13.  I wish I had pictures!!!

So, going back east and seeing everyone was truly special.  Especially now with my Mom gone it was wonderful to be with her 2 brothers and we toasted her at every meal.  Uncle Joe (on the left) is my Godfather.

We loved seeing Mr. Peanut on the Boardwalk, the way we did when we were younger.

My uncle Bob is truly the most outspoken 81-year old man I have ever met.  After I pushed Aunt Doris around in her wheel chair at a casino in Atlantic City, he said, “A great ass is a national treasure.  You have one.”   OK, well, thanks Uncle Bob!!  

Uncle Bob’s crazy pants:——–>

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All in all, it was wonderful , but I am always happy to get home to my beloved La Strada…..hope to see you soon.  

xoxoxo Lisa

A few weeks ago we held our 9th annual Customer Appreciation Party at La Strada. Yes!  The 9th one!

I had read about another restaurant creating an annual event, then made the idea my own by adding a fun quiz, a buffet of all new items for guests to try, AND handing out tambourines! (More on that later….).

Let’s start with the important stuff…..look at these awesome shoes I got for the party!

We begin by greeting each guest at the door of La Strada and making them a name tag with their favorite dish prominently highlighted.  Everyone enjoys meeting each other, and the “Eggplant Parmesan people” all feel that their dish is best! (It’s MY favorite!!)

Then each guest is given a “quiz”, which is just a fun way to let them learn more about us, both personally and about La Strada.  They are all great sports trying to figure out which two of the staff are nursing students, and trying to guess how many loaves of bread we use each week.

Question #4 this year was:   What does Lisa keep in her bra?

a. The restaurant key    b. A pedometer to count her steps    c. Extra napkinsThat elicited quite a few entertaining comments!

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Next comes the buffet and it is fun to see everyone try something new.During dinner I am honored to take the microphone and introduce the staff at La Strada.  Every one of them is so special to me!The guests are always wonderful in listening to me tell a story about each one of them.

Some of our La Strada patrons have come to almost every party, including Charley and Annie (on the left with Jaime).  And Jimmie and Sharon. (below). And I know there are many more of you!

These are the people who really support us and keep La Strada in business.  And we really LOVE them too!   I share stories about how they have been so wonderful and caring to my staff, who are like “my kids.”

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I also share how their patronage has helped us all to support ourselves.  At one party I had my daughter stand up and grin because she had just gotten off her braces (she didn’t like that I made her do that!)  I let the crowd know that I was able to pay for her beautiful smile because they ate 8,739 bowls of Penne Pomodoro!

Then……. my homemade cake! The party ends with a rousing rendition of “That’s Amore!”, sung by all, with tambourines in hand!

Check out a video about this year’s party here (it has many of our favorite customers, maybe you are in it!):  Customer Appreciation Party 2011.

If you missed this year’s event at La Strada, look for it next year!  We can’t wait!

xoxo Lisa

I grew up on Daphne Avenue.  Number 13708.  My friend Michele lived across the street, I don’t remember her house number.  But we were best friends.  We were so proud that our birthdays were 2 days apart; she was Nov. 12^th and I was Nov. 14^th.  I always said “I knew her since I was zero”. 

We went to kindergarten together, Mrs. Bliss was our teacher.  Michele was always so good in class.  I wasn’t.  If you were “bad” you had to stay in during recess. I loved staying in, so I was bad on purpose.  I didn’t want to go out and run around; I wanted to play quietly alone with the blocks…early signs of my true nature because I still like to be indoors and quietly solve problems and puzzles.

Our households were so different. My house was cluttered and disorganized and LOUD.  My mother let us make bread-and-butter sandwiches whenever we wanted, and we could watch as many cartoons as we liked.  My mother was the Mom who everyone loved because she was so fun, creative, and eccentric.  There was never a dull moment and she came up with one creative game after another.

I liked going to Michele’s house though.  It was very quiet, and I felt very calm there.  It was completely neat and tidy.  Everything was perfectly put away. Her mother served us healthy snacks while we watched “Father Knows Best.” I was fascinated with how much her home seemed like “Father’s” on TV.  You could even hear their clocks ticking.  It was nothing like my house.

When we were 6-years-old, Michele’s father got transferred. I was devastated.  They only moved about an hour’s drive away, but to me as a little girl it seemed she was moving across the country.  In the years that followed, our mothers did a very special thing: they kept us close by having us go to each other’s house for several weeks during the year over Christmas, Easter, and summer.

We lost touch for a little bit during the teenage years, but in our 20’s we regained our friendship, flying to attend each other’s weddings and sharing in the joy of our children.  

Michele and her family ended up re-locating to Seattle.  Many summers my children and I would go to visit my husband’s family in Spokane, and would then drive to Lake Chelan in the middle of Washington State to Michele’s lakeside home.  There is no way to describe these awesome trips; our children grew up together.  Michele’s kids call me Aunt Lisa and mine call her Aunt Michele.

Our children at Lake Chelan

There is just something so special about knowing someone your whole life.  We both remember Purche Elementary, the candy at King’s Liquor store, and my Mom’s car that everyone called the “old clunker.” 

Soooo… this Thursday Michele is coming to visit!  I can’t wait.  We’ll talk for hours and we’ll never run out of things to talk about. 

After all, we’ve known each other our whole lives, since we were zero.

So it’s March. Green Dog month.

Sometimes I get the wildest ideas and I don’t know where they come from…

On St. Patrick’s Day in 2010 I was really bummed about something. Don’t ask me what, I can’t remember now. I knew business would be slow at every Italian restaurant, in Long Beach or anywhere else for that matter. But that wasn’t the problem.  I was just out-of-sorts.

I looked over at my beautiful blond 11-year-old dog Kyle and the idea hit me:  “Wouldn’t it be fun to paint Kyle green and just go for a long walk on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore?”

I knew I didn’t want to spray-paint him or do anything that would harm him in anyway, so I googled it “How do you paint your dog?” (I swear, you can google anything!) I couldn’t believe the easy answer: unsweetened Lime Jell-O or just basic green food coloring.

Wow, who would have thought? This would be so easy and so harmless. My delight at having fun with this project lessened whatever was bugging me that day.

I posted on Facebook what I was thinking about doing. A couple people said “NO, don’t do that.” But friendly Woody Woods, the awesome photographer said, “If you’d like, I’ll come over and document it.” I said yes, and Woody headed over to my place.

I set up a plastic mat in front of my house in the California sunshine (we are so lucky to live in Belmont Shore!) And I began while Woody snapped away.

Kyle was as relaxed as ever and seemed to so enjoy being brushed and groomed for 2 hours. He didn’t know he was green. Aren’t dogs color-blind anyway?

And here is the subtitle to this post:

I would love to lie there while someone rubbed food coloring all over me, green or any other color!  He loved it!

We went walking on 2nd St. and my oh my, what fun!  People everywhere wanted to have their picture taken with Kyle.  Children LOVED the friendly green dog.

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A group of 3 men stared at Kyle.

One said, “I’m so drunk I think that dog looks green!”

“Haha,” I laughed, “He IS green!”

We even ran into the mayor of Long Beach, Bob and his beautiful wife, Nancy.

All-in-all it was a fun experience. And it proved that looking for any silver lining or “green lining” can get you out of a funk.

Would I do it again? ………………What do you think?

See you all soon at  La Strada for the best Italian food ever!

PS Look for me on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore on the 17th……..wink! wink!

Menus, menus, everywhere!

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A young man came in to pick up his to-go order.  He was hungry and irritated.  Well, mostly annoyed.  He said “I can’t find your menu ANYWHERE online!  Where is it?  Don’t you have a web site?”

"Hello? Australia? I need help!!"

Well, yes I did and do.  Let’s just say it was Murphy’s Law and anything and everything that could go wrong, DID. I even had to call a company in Australia to solve this problem!

My domain name expired without me being notified and I lost my site. I had a new one I was working on, but we were running into trouble with that one too.

I also was having an identity crisis of sorts with the name.  I thought LaStradaOn2nd.com would be easy, after all I am located on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore.

But try spelling that to someone, when you get to the ‘O-N-2-N-D” their eyes glaze over,  “Huh?”  ” 2-N-what?”

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I then tried matching the domain name to my Facebook name, Lisa LaStrada.

“What?” said my inquiring customer, “How would I know that your name is Lisa?!?!”  He was right; I sheepishly had to admit it.  When you’re searching for an Italian restaurant in Long Beach, you’re not going to put “Lisa” in the search bar.  Duh!!

So, now, all is solved!  Without further adieu, I am:

LaStradaLongBeach.com

Yes!

LaStradaLongBeach.com

Easy to remember!

Easy to spell!

Easy to find!

Now bookmark it or “favorite” it so you can always find out what’s going on at La Strada and all things good in Belmont Shore and Long Beach, my favorite neighborhood and city!

And, for that wonderful customer who got me motivated to make everything more clear, here is the menu in all its glory:

The La Strada Menu!

We’ve made everything ala Carte also, so it is more affordable if you do not want the soup or salad.  Easy, done, simple.  And our number? (562) 433-8100

Thank you to Shannon Avery who captured the essence of who I am and what I stand for by creating a website that “looks like me.”  Go see it; you’ll understand what I mean:

My web site!

Whew! I’m glad that is all worked out!  On to the next exciting dilemma!  See you in my little LaStrada in Belmont Shore, very soon, I hope!

I went to New York City over New Year’s.

I learned some new things.

First of all, I love New York, but it was extra cold on this visit.  It should not have taken me so long to remember, “Put on your coat BEFORE you go outside!” Duh…but I’m used to California and a few minutes here without is just a shiver.

Next, don’t judge.  On one of my walks, I discovered this restaurant:

Hmmmm, I thought, …is Ralph really Italian?  Doesn’t sound like it….. but then again, who am I to judge? I am the proprietor of La Strada and I’m not Italian either!

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Sodas in NYC are served in small cups and there are no re-fills.  Don’t even ask unless you want a “look.”  And look at these teeny little Diet Cokes – who could be satisfied with these?

Not me!

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Next observation: The cream cheese frosting on Red Velvet cupcakes in New York is not cream-cheesy enough.

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And reinforcing something I already knew: when in doubt, ask your Facebook friends for help!   I did not have my New Year’s eve plans figured out, but I did know I did not want to be in the masses down on Times Square.  So I put the word out on Facebook and, of course, my friend Todd D. gave me 2 excellent recommendations right in the neighborhood where I was staying.  I ended up at the Dream Hotel, 14 floors up at a wonderful celebration. Thanks Todd!

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I also learned that the NYPD are very friendly on New Year’s eve.  There were a lot of them so I think they are very prepared.  They were very helpful, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt that I was wearing these boots:

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So what does all  this have to do with La Strada?  Well, only to say….

There’s no place like home!! And I’m glad to be back…..