Sardinia - Beautiful Place, Beautiful People, Blissful Adventure

Yesterday while creating my post for my amazing friend, chef, and author Viktorija Todorovska and her Sardinia Project, I realized I had never edited my Sardinia photos from 2010.

Part of me I know could not do this because it was the last vacation I took with my co-owner and dear friend Antonello Losito before I decided to leave the company. It was frankly too difficult to see the joy on everyone's faces knowing that a trip like this might not happen again.

I have now finally moved through my grieving period at leaving this amazing company and I was simply blown away when I went through my photos yesterday and saw what I had captured during this huge transition in my life.

Sardinia or Sardegna in Italian, is perhaps the most ruggedly beautiful place I have experienced in my years of travel. It is a basically a series of mountains that drop directly to the sea. The people are hearty, country, and full of vigor as well as political discord. This is an isolated place with a culture that is quite different from Rome, or Venice, or even Tuscany. This is country and mountain living that has only in the last 50 years migrated to the sea.

In only 10 days we went from an amazing family visit with the Giordano clan in Sassari to the sea in Alghero, to the mountains and the politically fractured creative town of Orgosolo. Then we drove all the way back to the sea at Orosei (a whopping 1 hour) before crossing even more mountains to Arbatax and finally to Cagliari where we boarded a ghost ferry back to Rome.

This trip changed me and helped me to understand that I needed more travel and more experience. While I excelled at getting people to Puglia for the company, my own sense of adventure languished while others were catching me, passing me, and living a life I wanted. Sardinia taught me to keep going and at my own direction in my own time.

My photos of the most beautiful children living an amazing life are enormous indicators to me that I have much to do before I could have a family of my own. I will not be qualified for the job of Dad till I feel like I have enough life lived and knowledge to teach my kids the things I want them to know; and while many of you would argue that as people we are never ready, I am not really interested in rhetoric. This is about my own spiritual journey and adventure in living. Today is about Sardinia.

No place better than food to tell you that on this island they do it right. From local cooks, to shepherd meals outdoors on a mountain, all the way to the best agriturismo meal I have ever had. Sardinia is heaven if you like to eat and even more amazing when you have the scenery attached to the meals.

This was truly a Blissful Adventure for me and Juliet. I am certain that the 5 days in Germany and 10 in Sardinia subsequently were the best 15 days Juliet has enjoyed in Europe. We go back this year with a new plan that looks much like my first plan to Italy 20 years ago this year. Eyes wide open, judgments blurred by wine, and experiences left to fate, the weather, and the whimsical nature of man. Follow me on this path.

There will be much more about Sardinia in my book on Italy wanderings next year. For now, please enjoy these photos and feel free to view the entire album on FLICKR.

IMO Thursday - Sardinia - A Project Worth Supporting

Ladies and Gentleman I want to introduce you to a very dear friend and someone I should have introduced long ago. My talented friend is Viktorija Todorovska. 

Viktorija is an Italian Food and Wine Professional, and author of the wildly successful cooking adventure, The Puglian Cookbook. Since the launch of the book in May of last year I believe that Viktorija has truly put the amazing cuisine of Puglia in the map. I met Viktorija while we were both in Puglia a few years ago and we became fast friends. She is intelligent, wonderfully well-traveled, and exceptional with languages and cultural nuances. I envy so many of her skills and when I read The Puglian Cookbook I knew she was going to be a star.

Now, Viktorija, who originally hails from Macedonia and currently calls Chicago home is off to Sardinia to develop a food and wine project to raise awareness of the glorious culture of Italy's second largest island. Sardegna is home to the highest percentage of human beings living beyond the age of 100 in the world and Viktorija intends to show the world why.

I had the great privilege of discussing my passion for Sardinia with Viktorija before her last trip there and I am so happy to say that many of the things I love about the island will indeed be part of her Sardinia Project (click the link for details).

I would encourage you all to watch this very short video produced by Viktorija and her very talented photographer husband to hear their plans for this project directly from Viktorija. If you have ever wanted to be directly involved with the production of a potentially award-winning travel video and accompanying guide this is your opportunity. Part of what we do as travel writers and professionals is to bring the joy of a place home to our readers and followers. Please take just a moment to see some wonderful images of Sardinia and hear all about this unique and culturally enlightening project

Sardinian-food-and-wine-an-undiscovered-treasure - simply click the link and press play on the video.

If you like what you see and you are interested in being a part of this big endeavor the following packages are available and I think you will find what she is asking versus what you get in return is immensely more of a win-win than a standard donation to PBS or the like.

The following is from Viktorija herself and I support it wholeheartedly.

• The excitement for the Sardinian food and wine video is growing! The Kickstarter project is now 60% funded.

• We hope you'll help us spread the word about what we're going and consider participating in this exciting adventure.

• $1 pledge gets you a mention as a project contributor

• $5 pledge gets you my eBook on how to make the best risotto every time

• $25 pledge gets you a copy of the Sardinian food and wine video and an electronic copy of the Sardinian cookbook (release date Fall 2013) and of course the eBook on risotto

• $35 pledge gets you a copy of the Sardinian food and wine video and a hard copy of the Sardinian cookbook (release date Fall 2013) and of course the eBook on risotto

• $50 pledge gets your all of the rewards you get for a $35 pledge plus a signed copy of The Puglian Cookbook.

• And the rewards go on, including food and wine consultations, cooking classes with me, and a fancy dinner with wine pairings.

To be a part of this, simply click HERE and let Viktorija know how you would like to help.

Part of the fun in blogging about Viktorija's amazing project has been the opportunity to return to my photos of Sardinia which I have been using in this post.   Juliet and I are so enamored with Sardinia and we know you will be as well.

Please feel free to share this with any of your friends or those of you interested in sharing a little Bliss with my talented friend Viktorija Todorovska

Valentine's Dinner Corn Dog at The Hamburger Stand

Careful: Contents are Caustic and Could Cause Eye Burn and Bloody Stool

Juliet and I have spent exactly 5 nights apart since December 11, 2006. That's right, we are literally inseparable and I am more at ease with her near me than I am alone. Call it co-dependence, habit, or any other form of label you would like. I simply like her more than anyone else I have ever met and prefer to keep her kind of company.

This being said, we dine out as a hobby. We love restaurants and especially the great ones. We enjoy seeing how a great restaurant runs on slow nights as we can often chat with a chef or spend extra moments discussing wine options with the Sommelier.

We rarely dine out on busy nights like Saturdays and we particularly steer clear of the two great amateur nights of the year: New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day. A little bit of insider restaurant insight: chef's hate those nights, servers hate those nights, and you are likely to be treated to a much more innocuous experience dining on these "Special Occasions." Don't blame the restaurants, it is simply an unavoidable circumstance of blatant commercialism and a country full of lemmings and people who buy diamonds at Jared. I avoid dining on any night where a restaurant that does not operate normally with a set seating time employees a set seating time.

In addition to this, I do not wait in lines and especially with the general public. I prefer to eat in a place with a little space so that I can enjoy my meal in a fine establishment without the aroma of Drakkar and Cigarettes from a few tables of people who have pulled an extra shift or two to get the steak and lobster.

All of this being said, Juliet and I have destroyed our mental faculties with some of the most tiresome decisions of our lives in the past 2 weeks and this move has been one logistics fiasco after another. We were not going to join the legions of VD revelers at some place destined to disappoint.

We worked on the house till around 8pm and then headed out for The Hamburger Stand. The Hamburger Stand in Lakewood, CO is a 62 year-old A-Framed building that has been making burgers, hot dogs, Polish sandwiches and Corn Dogs according to family recipes since its inception. This does not mean organic, healthy, or low in calories. It does not even mean it is good. It simply signifies our resignation to exhaustion and our desire for anyplace without a line, a balloon, or especially any fucking roses smelling up the joint.

I will take old grease and seared meat aroma over roses any day. Roses smell like the air-freshener my Grandma used in the bathroom and there is just something so wrong about the olfactory amalgamation of roses and human excrement.

Pardon the digression but roses are for amateurs and women who read 99 cent paperbacks. If I bought my wife roses she would look me square in the face and say, "are you ill? were those free? you could have bought me chocolates from Araya or daisies, or a scarf, but roses...why don't we put those outside?"

The Hamburger Stand has all the basic food groups: hamburgers, corn dogs, fries, and Tastee Freez Shakes. (suckin' on a chili dog outside the Tastee Free-eez...another song for another blog) We had them all. We actually held greasy hands a few times while we inhaled our hydrogenated repast and even walked greasy hand in hand on our way into Target for yet more cleaning supplies.

The Valentine aisle at Target was decimated and all that remained were a few tasteless greeting cards and a crying girl staring at the last vestiges of red M&Ms while her friends brushed her shoulders and whispered things like "he didn't deserve you and your baby WILL have a family"

Happy Valentines Day Blissful Boys and Girls!

Shit-hole Stories - The (Shit)Storm before the Calm

Dear Blissful Loyalists and Fans,

As Juliet and I  finally found a home we were prepared for the"big relax" and end to our last 7 weeks on the road. We met a very cool Marine and Veteran of Iraq who needed to sublet his place. We, living in a shit hotel, needed a place.

We agreed on a price, rented furniture, set up cable and internet, finally culminating in a key and cash swap like a coke deal in broad daylight.

Joey(as we will call him) was a man of his word and we had a home.

Come to find out his idea of clean and ours was a bit different. As we walked into the place we noticed an acrid air of foot-funk and soured beverages. We immediately saw that Joey's trophy case of empty beer bottles and cheap wine was still in all its glory positioned above our stove and facing out to the living area. He told me he saw me admiring them when we visited before and he assumed I would want to keep them. He appeared to pout when we told him that they were destined for the recycle.

As Juliet was seething at the condition of the floors, the walls, the tub, and the aroma I was walking Joey out to his car and sending him on his way. I returned and prepared to micturate in my new toilet only to discover it was completely brown with mildew and scum.

Juliet almost cried and 20 minutes later so did I when the $91.37 bill for cleaning supplies rang up at our local Target.

Of course the smell was still pervasive, even with pet odor remover running deep into the carpets, Lysol bombs every 2-4 hours, and soap and water flowing like loaves and fishes.

A few hours after our self-imposed sterilization lock-down Joey returned and while acting surprised that we found the place to be unsatisfactorily fumigated he brazenly asked if Juliet, being a nurse, would inspect and treat a glass wound; in of all places, his foot.

Not even Seinfeld could have prepared us for this.

At least I have internet...

Frosty Morning Menagerie

Good Day Adventurers! Juliet and I are moving into our new digs today so for all of you whom I have not replied to your generous and wonderful comments yesterday, I apologize and you will hear from me soon.

This morning I was thrilled to find an amazing layer of frost on our car with just the right sunrise light dappling through the ice crystals.

I shot a series of photos and I am sharing them here with you. These photos have seen little post processing and are the truly as I viewed them on this crystalline morning.

I think there is a little magic in these shots.

"L'alba bella