We’re back from a whirlwind trip to Italy & Spain!  It was HOOOOT.  So hot.  Like, taking a vacation in a sauna hot.  The kind of hot where are you just want to stand under a cold shower.  The kind of hot that makes it horrendously hard to get up and be a productive tourist.  But, we tried.  Our feeble attempts were usually rewarded with prosecco, or cava or sangria.  And that, well, that made it delicious!

I’m still getting through all of the images from the trip, but I did want to share all of the goodies that I brought home!   I love to bring back things that I’ll use.  Things that will remind me of the wonderful experience without necessarily screaming I WENT TO ITALY AND BROUGHT BACK THIS T-SHIRT!  I try to pick up the pretty things that a country is known for.  Things that might have originated there or have beautifully adapted to there.

So, turns out the Italians love olive wood.  Or they just have too much of it.  So I picked up olive wood cheese boards and lugged them through Italy.  And then Spain.  They are so heavy and so lovely I couldn’t bear to leave them behind.  More olive wood serving spoons and olive oil drippers.  A few kitchen utensils and the teeniest flour scoop.  I adore it and am so upset with myself for not buying at least fifteen of them. The book is Marie Antoinette in Spanish, picked up at a tiny outdoor book store in Barcelona.  And then my most favorite new purchase, a dragon head spicket for the new back yard sink.  If I’m going to have to scrub dirt off vegetables, I’d like to do it in style.  Now, just to find the perfect outdoor sink.  I’m hoping to find something in marble, maybe with a high back, so the spicket comes out of the wall, through the sink and then down.  I have a feeling it will be a lengthy search!