Keto Cupcakes

Varya put us on a mostly Keto low-carb diet over a year ago, enabling both of us to slim down from peak weights, me by 35 lbs! I certainly don’t mind Keto’s focus on steak, smoked brisket and ribs, cream, cheese, eggs and bacon, and other proteins–supplemented with salads, coleslaw and vegetables–but now and then I miss tortillas, potatoes, popcorn and deserts. So, we have cheat days every couple of weeks, when we’re allowed to chow down at Star Cinema Grill, Lupe Tortilla, El Tiempo, or another of our carbo-licious favorites, indulging in chips, fresh tortillas, tres leches and the like. At home, Varya has been experimenting with Keto sweets, which seems like an oxymoron until all doubts are erased as you enjoy one of her Keto candies, donuts, or cupcakes with coffee for breakfast…a great way to start the day!

Fried Turkey Day

Varya spent the prior day cooking several dishes and desserts before Thanksgiving afternoon when we grabbed a 14 lb turkey and my propane deep fryer and headed to Dad and Elaine’s Pearland palace to deep fry that bird and feast upon way too much food prepared by Varya, Elaine, and nearly 35 lbs of 375°F peanut oil.

Deep frying, of course, produces relatively moist turkey meat with a crispy skin relatively quickly (less than 2 hours to heat oil and cook, cool and carve a big bird) and expensively (the peanut oil cost twice as much as the turkey). The result was worth the risk of an uncontrolled oil fire.

Clearly Dad was most excited by dinner, as was one of their identical pair of super poopers, Micky or Ricky (I’m never sure which).

After several hours of frying, feasting, and fun (and the usual senior tech support reconfiguring TVs, iPads and iPhones), we headed home in a triptofan trance…

…only to begin my Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping online (never in person with the mobs). As savvy online shoppers are well aware, at least 95% of the “deals” advertised during the holiday season range from hype to misleading to useless, with obsolete models labeled “doorbusters”, limited bait to fill the store, rarely worth the time or money. So, as in recent years, I made a list of desired targets/presents and rely primarily upon TheWirecutter.com, my go-to product recommendation site throughout the year, to continuously distill and notify me of only the best deals–rare or unprecedented price cuts on the most highly rated products in various categories (less than 5% of advertised deals are worthwhile according to Wirecutter)–and jump when they highlight one of my targets as a recommended deal at Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, Walmart, REI, Home Depot, etc. Supplementing Wirecutter wisdom are two of my favorite web browser extensions: The Camelizer to track past Amazon price history and send me alerts for a particular item (and confirm how good a deal it really is or isn’t), and Honey to search for all available discounts and coupon codes for a particular vendor’s web site. (SlickDeals is another price tracking/alert site I’ve successfully used in the past to find historic sales.) I’ve made heavy use of these shopping tools to save hundreds of $ over the last few days since deep fried turkey day, and will continue so through xmas.

Italian Fortnight

Varya and I spent half of July in Italy, traveling from Rome to Florence to Venice and back to Rome on Frecciarossa, staying in nice, well located apartments. Spending four half-weeks in four homes essentially divided our fortnight into quarters, making it feel like four mini-vacations separated by high speed train rides between ancient cities. Our many online photos and videos (most using a Panasonic Lumix ZS100, some with an iPhone 8 or SE) visually describe our entire trip, so here I’ll focus on advice for two Italian holiday essentials: lodging and tours.

I found primo apartments on Airbnb in desirable locations at surprisingly reasonable rates…exclusively from “Superhosts” to better ensure a smooth experience in quality accommodations. Our first Roman terrace had a great view of St. Peter’s dome, lit up at night and greeting us each morning. Our Florentine studio overlooked the Arno River, a skipping stone’s throw from the Ponte Vecchio…bellissimo! Our Venetian apartment had the best decor, just a few steps from the Rialto Bridge. And our final Roman apartment was in the bustling shopping district of Campo Marzio–a short walk from the Spanish Steps and Pantheon–where Varya unleashed her Visa upon fashionable perfume and handbag shops. All of our apartments were in the $100-160/night range, so these premium locations cost a total of $2K over two weeks…nothing to sneeze at, but these Airbnb apartments were cheaper (and larger) than nearby hotel rooms, especially in the peak tourist month of July. Plus, the convenience of having kitchens and washing machines can not be overstated after long days of walking in the warm Tuscan sun.

Normally I’m not interested in slow, constrained group tours with occasionally obnoxious tourists, preferring to strike out and explore independently with a few cool people. (Some of my favorite European vacations have been on motorcycles with 2 or 3 other riders.) However, tour groups can help you skip long public lines at popular sites, and you may learn something new from a knowledgeable guide. So, for better tours, I highly recommend Walks of Italy to Americans for reasons described below. First, however, here are the tours we chose, one per quarter fortnight:

Pristine Sistine gave us early, pre-public entrance into the Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museums, and St. Peter’s Basilica.
After Hours at the Accademia gave us easy, uncrowded access to David and other Renaissance and Medieval masterpieces.
Venice in a Day included the Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Basilica, and even a gondola ride after lunch.
Premium Colosseum half-day tour included the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum.

Why is Walks of Italy so top choice? Walks limits groups to 15 or fewer tourists–I think ours ranged from 10 to 14–whereas competitors such as City Wonders typically have groups of 20-30, and an in-port cruise ship can choke museum halls with mobs of 50. Smaller groups enable you to interact a lot more with your guide and group, questioning and joking, and to move through crowded tourist areas more easily. A related nit: while our Walks guides carried small, plain, yellow umbrellas–easily seen but unobtrusive when collapsed, and handy sun screens outside–other guides had their flags/advertisements waving high on telescoping rods as beacons for their oversized groups, flags which always seemed to interfere with my photos!

Walks uses local Italian guides who are fluent in history, humor and English, catering to their target demographic of monolingual Americans. This may be explained by the co-founder, Jason Spiehler, being a young American art historian and theology major that I met a decade ago on the Palatine Hill. He was loudly offering “free tour!”, so my ex and I took him up on it and he guided us down into the Roman Forum, explaining everything we saw and didn’t see…so well that we bought his evening walking tour of the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and other magico night sights. From those humble beginnings as a solo tour guide, Jason has built an apparently thriving business, claiming to employ over 100 guides in Italy, Paris and New York. Check out the incredible variety of tours on the Walks of Italy web site, try a couple, and thank me later.