From Venice with love

Hi bloggers friends, it is been a while!

Sharing some pictures from our trip to Venice for our Anniversary.

Lunch at Volt.

Tags

Top chef, Volt restaurant, Voltaggio brother

On April 2nd, Jim and I went to Volt restaurant for our anniversary.  Volt is run by Bryan Voltaggio, the highly accomplished chef who was a finalist on Top Chef Season Six.

I am not going to say more, I will let you enjoy the pictures of our high end culinary experience!

The restaurant

The Houck Mansion where the restaurant is located in Frederick

The hot fresh bread

Amuse-bouche, courtesy of the Chef!

Meringue macaroon filled with Foie Gras

Ravioli...

...filled with goat cheese

Tuna tartare

Beef tenderloin

Bass with cauliflower

Goat cheese cheesecake and ice cream

Textures of chocolate

Selection of cheese, bread and coffee

Departure gift from the chef

The Voltaggio brothers have a blog if you want to have a look: The Voltaggio Brothers

I want to dedicate this post to my cyber friend Debra, from Italy, who always shares on her blog bagnidilucca.wordpress.com pictures of the most distinguished italian food!

International Crush Day, February 20th, my story.

Tags

Crush Day, falling in love, Love, Valentine's

When I read about international Crush Day, celebrated on February 20^th, (don’t ask me what it is or where does it come from), I tried to remember my first crush.

Usually your first crush comes very early in your life, so early that you are not even capable of remembering it.  My first crush, or at least the one I still remember, happened when I was at school.  I must have been 11 years old.  His name was Raffi and he was few years older than me.

I don’t remember what he looked like, except for the few pimples he had all over his face, but I certainly remember how he made me feel.  Or how my feelings for him made me feel.  Or how I made myself feel, since all this was in my head.

It was a beautiful feeling in the beginning.  I would wake up in the morning and think about him.  I would spend hours in front of the mirror thinking what to wear to make myself look beautiful, in case he noticed me that day.  It made me become more stylish and creative, day after day.  I would spend my time trying to see how to make myself look better and attractive.  Before my crush I never looked at myself this way.  You just …don’t care how you look.  And then came Raffi and the idea of him looking at me, motivated me to bring the best in me.

It was certainly a puppy love.  I never spoke to him, he never spoke to me.  The only contact we have ever had was staring at each other in the corridor, during lunch break.

My entire day would evolve around seeing him.  I would walk the corridor back and forth, looking for him, making him noticing me, and then I would ask my girlfriend: “did he looked at me?”

The feeling I had, when I used to see him, was overwhelming.  It was a warm sensation, that made me feel so strong and yet so weak.  And if he ever looked at me, I would feel as if I was the most beautiful person in the universe.  I would feel powerful, fearless, cute and funny.

One day I saw Raffi talking to a girl, it made me sad.  I started researching to learn everything about her.  I wanted to know what made her so special?  What made her better than me?

Day after day Raffi was spending his lunch break with her.  And my heart was broken.

I was sad, weak, doubting myself all the time.  Mornings didn’t feel good any more, and waking up to go to school had no meaning.  I wanted to spend my days in bed, curled in a foetus position, under my sheets, dreaming of Raffi.  I wanted to have this warm feeling back again.

It was a start, just a start of a long journey of crushes.   Some of the crushes became love, and a big love became a marriage.  Love became real.

The intensity of young loves and crushes faded as years went by, fortunately, because it started to happen to me every other months, and everywhere.  But Love is always present in my life.

Love makes you alive, makes you sparkle with joy, makes you divine and spiritual.  It makes you go through feelings you will never experience without love, like victory, glory, but sometimes defeat, loss and abandonment.

Love is real but it exists only in our head, and for as long as we want it to last.  Love is experienced by all of us, and still the object of so many experimental science.  Why do we fall in love?  Why do we love this person in particular?   Why do we fall out of love?  Why do we fall in love with a person who doesn’t love us?  What chemistry has to do with it?  Why do we love some one who is just like us?  Or a foreigner who is the complete opposite of us?

After Valentine’s day, last week, now they came up with Crush Day.  Single people with no partners or no one to love or to love them, just survived an emotionally exhausting week-end.  They are secretly hoping that this Crush Day will disappear, and that it will not be celebrated, ever…until they find love.

Be patient, and stay in love.

Vote for Molten Chocolate on Valentine’s day.

I mean literally…

…(just trying to see how this poll thing works)

To all the Someones in Love.

Tags

love Poem, Valentine's poetry

Right now someone is falling in love with someone and cannot hold it back.

Right now someone is in love with someone who doesn’t love them back.

Right now someone is in love with someone who doesn’t belong to them.

Right now someone is in love with someone who will never come back.

Right now someone is in love with someone who once loved them back.

Right now someone is in love with someone whom death will never bring back.

Let’s talk about love, let’s forget that it is cold outside, let’s celebrate Valentine’s.

Tags

Gebran Khalil Gebran, Love, poem, Valentine's

By Gebran Khalil Gebran (translated):

 

Some people, we love them;

but we don’t get near them…because, from far, they are more seductive,

from far, they are more noble…from far, they are more precious.

—————————————————-♥

Some people, we love them,

we do anything to be close to them,

we do everything to share every detail of our life with them,

it hurts to stay away from them,

it is impossible to imagine our life without them.

—————————————————-♥

Some people, we love them,

we wish to live a beautiful story with them,

we come up with circumstances just to bump into them,

we come up with excuses just to see them,

we live a fantasy with them.

—————————————————–♣

Some people, we love them,

but we keep it a secret to ourselves,

so we remain silent, even if it burns us,

we don’t declare our love, because the obstacles are numerous,

and the consequences are frightening,

and it is best for us  that the door stays shut between us.

—————————————————-♥

Some people, we love them,

we fill the earth with their love and we speak about them to the world,

we constantly whisper their name,

we need their presence… like water…like air,

we suffocate when they are not around.

————————————————-♣

Some people, we love them,

because they are available,

and our need to be loved pulls us to them,

because time flies, we age, and it scares us to stay without a companion.

————————————————–♣

Some people, we love them,

because they deserve nothing but to be loved,

we learn from them,

we build with them,

we paint the color of life with them,

we do everything to keep them happy.

—————————————————♥

Some people, we love them,

but they don’t love us back,

so we break and fall,

we never forget them,

we love no one but them,

and we cry them over again, every time we fail to win their love.

—————————————————–♥
Some people, we love them,

we just wait until they see us,

until they love us in return,

until they love us as much as we love them.

————————————————♣

End

It is a very powerful poem (thank you Michelle for sending it to me).

It was sent to me in Arabic, I don’t know if it was written in Arabic or translated from English to Arabic. Because, I know that  Gebran Khalil Gebran wrote in both languages.

I loved this poem so much that I decided to translate it into English and share it on my blog.

The translation is not very accurate, I have to admit. I adapted it to fit better the English language and my personal taste.

I always asked myself, which one of the different descriptions is the love of the husband/wife, our love for our children, for parents, lover, mistress…..

And, is it possible to love all those people at the same time?  or in different period of our life?

What do you think?