Euro Drinks, Pastries and Sweets!

Now wont this be a sweet blog posting: drinks, pastries and sweets.  Most people know I (Heather) am partial to the sweets, specifically 5 cent candies; however, on this trip, funny enough I didn't find any 7-11's to buy my Canadian delicacies, so I had to raise my standards for the European drinks, pastries and sweets.... hard life.

Below are pictures of only SOME of the drinks, pastries, and sweets we had on our travels through Italy and Malta.

Enjoy :)

We'll start with the DRINKS!

I believe this was my thrid coffee drink of the day.  This was a chilled coffee, frothy as can be, served in large wine style glasses.  This was on the streets in Torino, Italy.

Back at Giovanni and Rosalba's house we had some apertif drinks before lunch with some Italian meats (background) mixed with this Martini alcohol and ruby red grapefruit juice.  I really enjoyed the apertif's we experienced on our trip, a bitter alcoholic drink.  I believe we can buy this Martini flavoured alcohol in Canada; however, I never have it in our house or have it served to me in anyone else's house, we might have to change that.

This is Michele Prencipe (Jon's Father's Brother) and his "Nero di Troia", translation, "Black of Troia".  Troia is Jon's father's home town in the province or territory of Puglia.  The wine is unbelievably cheap in Italy, and unbelievably tasty.  We enjoyed this wine in the city of Milano.

Pre-made Sangria in Malta! Genius idea, Genius size, and Genius tasting.  Highly recommended.  Tastes like delicious juice; however, lucky enough it's alcoholic as well!

Drinks we missed taking pictures of was all of the different types of wine we had.  They are so affordable as the grapes are grown everywhere you look.  As we were traveling in the South of Italy, there were fields and fields of grapes.  Because of this abundance we could walk into a grocery store in Brindisi (on the heel of Italy) and buy a nice bottle of wine for 1 euro. ONE EURO!  For all of you Canadians reading this, that is One looney and one quarter, one nickel, and three pennies.  $1.33 Canadian.  There were obviously more expensive wines ranging to 10 Euros; but we had to buy a bottle for one Euro just to say we did. It was divine.  We also had all sorts of strong coffees, cafe latte`s and of course there was the odd limoncello.

On to the PASTRIES and SWEETS....

On the streets of downtown Milano comes a pastry store on wheels.  The title says Sicilian Sweets, and they were a treat.

Here`s a taster of something from the Sicilian sweets truck.  A cannoli, which is originally a Sicilian pastry desert (hence the truck`s name).  Inside was a sweet filling with Ricotta, in a deep friend pastry roll, topped with chopped pistachio nuts on either end. 

Here is an upclose picture of some of the pastries from the Sicilian sweets truck in Milan.

On to Malta and their pastries!  This is called Imqaret.  It is like ground date wrapped in a pastry dough and deep fried.  This is a very popular snack or desert in Malta.  These particular ones were being cooked up at a market; however, you are able to buy these in bulk at the grocery store to bake or fry at home. 

Jon, Doris, and Joe, enjoying some freshly deep fried Imqaret in downtown Valetta, Malta.

Zio Michele (Uncle Michele), a diabetic, tempted by the sweets that are commonly brought over by guests to a person`s house for desert, many cream puff type deserts.

A breadstore in Troia, Italy.  Freshly baked, smells delicious.  A common bread type snack is hard crusted bread, that you can pick up and walk with, in all different shapes.  For any Canadian`s that are confused, they are like breadsticks but different shapes and sometimes filled with a seasoning, like anise seed.  Grab some and go!

Two different types of Biscotti that were baked for us at a friend`s house in Troia Italy.

Jon is a fan of almond pastries, so when he saw the one on the right, it was a must have.  These are from Brindisi, Italy.

PASTIZZI! The famous Maltese pastry! Good luck finding these in Canada unless Jon`s mom or Nana like you, otherwise you`re not going to find them.  This is a pastry that is very labour intensive, and very common everywhere in Malta.  The dough is worked and worked and worked, and then rolled.  The rolled dough is then cut, into a slices, each slice is flattened, a mixture of riccotta, salt, egg, and pepper are placed in the middle of the flattened dough, then it is closed up, similiar to a perogie, and then baked to become this little beautiful tasty delicacy.  Lucky for us, Jon`s mom stocks us up so if you are curious, you can come over and we`ll have some.

The Gelateria! A very popular place as you can see.  This is in a suburb of Torino.  You can go in there and choose from many different flavours of Gelato, they will scoop whatever flavours you want into a to go styrofoam container and off you go to eat it with your friends and family at home.  Some of our favourite flavours were Nacciola (hazlenut), lemon, baci (the chocolates that you can by here in Canada), pistachio, and coconut.

A gelateria in Florence, look at those cones!

Cafe Latte and Gelato.... heaven.  This was in a little town in the South of Italy called Ostuni.

The closest thing I found to 5 cent candies... humongous Goodie type candies from a bulk spice store in Malta.  Black licorice inside and candy coating on the outside.  Someone should tell the Goodie manufacturers in Canada to up the size of them, they are better larger.


Hope we got your mouth watering! Thanks for reading :)  Happy Eating!