It’s a new year, 2019. Time to add to my blogging style and give you wonderful followers my fantastic and memorable Travel Food memories. Through my traveling I’ve experienced so many foods along the way that I need to share them all. Keeping the photo files uploaded means they’ll never get seen really so….for 2019 I’m going to add my travels and the foods I encountered to my blog. I’ll continue to blog my recipes from my home kitchen as well. More to read. More to share. More to learn. In July of 2015 for our family vacation we did a road trip through Central Europe. Now the best airfare we found for the 4 of us routed us on Turkish Airlines so first stop was Turkey. After a sizeable layover it was off to our first destination, Belgium. From Belgium we rode a train to our second stop, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Next was renting a car there and embarking on a 1600 mile drive from the Netherlands, to Germany, to the Czech Republic, to Poland, to Slovakia, to Hungary, to Austria. There we boarded a plane for our return flight home via Istanbul. So we added a few days in Turkey at the end of the trip. Our trip itineraries usually revolve around our flights. I grew up in very ItalianAmerican Staten Island but not in an Italian neighborhood. I was raised in the Travis section of this part of New York City and it was a sleepy little town that we often called Mayberry, like the fictional town of the 60’s show, the Andy Griffith Show. Only it was filled with Polish people, some Austrian, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak, Russian. Because of this I’ve always had a very sentimental place in my heart for anything Polish. It was like my adopted 2d nationality. Hearing the language often spoken in the Catholic church we attended, St. Anthony of Padua, being familiar with the Polish Language signage in the church, the hymns, the peoples’ last names made Poland a place I’d had on my bucket list. This trip was the ticket to finally see Poland and while there see the Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration Camp, also high on our list of things to experience. I must admit, it was one of the most heart wrenching and moving experiences of our lives. The route we mapped out (we do all our own travel planning) only allowed a few days in the city of Krakow and we made the most of it.
Poland did not disappoint us and in fact we were surprised at so many things we encountered. It’s a beautiful place. Verdant, pleasant spaces, well maintained medieval squares, churches, castles, buildings, but the people. They are wonderful. And so is the Ice Cream. I’m starting this travel food post with the ice cream. A small place on Stolarska, a medieval street that was infront of our hotel, the HOTEL SANTI was where we first had this delicious sweet creamy ice cream. Now most likely these ice creams we had were not made in Poland, Nestle Scholler is a German company and Movenpick is a Swiss company. But we had them in Poland. I had a cup with two scoops and I went for the two you see in the picture. BAKALIA is a Polish flavor made of Nuts and Dried Fruits in a Vanilla Ice Cream Base. If you like Rum Raisin you’ll love this flavor. So right there, something Polish, something new, something Travel Food. I still haven’t seen BAKALIA here in the USA which makes these memories fantastic. OWOCE LESNE was my other choice. Any Ice cream that is that color ALWAYS gets my vote. This is a popular flavor which translates as “Forest Fruit” or “Wild Fruit”. Basically is a mixed berry flavor and that rich ice cream was like eating bowls of ripe fruit. But better. Because it was Ice cream!! lol. This flavor is apparently loved by the Poles as you find teas infused with it in all the shops. Strolling back to our hotel after a full morning sightseeing, having a kielbasa and pierogi lunch, topping it off with that ice cream…Those are the dreams travel is made off. The 3 minute walk back to the hotel was only made sweeter with a street musician on one corner and Polish Caramels waiting for us in our hotel room.
A FOOD OBSESSION 