toasted ravioli

STL Day

On Tuesday we had Chicago Day; yesterday was STL Day (and what a day it was, with baseball-size hail and tornados not too far from us!)! 3/14 is a day to celebrate all things St. Louis, because the city’s area code is 314 (also the first area code we had when we moved to the Dogtown neighborhood of St. Louis over two decades ago). For dinner, we had some of St. Louis’ finest…Imo’s pizza from the freezer section (the best frozen replica of a restaurant pizza we’ve had!), toasted ravioli, and Fitz’s Cardinal Cream soda. And for dessert, I made another St. Louis classic, gooey butter cake:

We still have a whole slew of special days coming up, first next week, and then on through Easter, and even beyond…stay tuned!

An STL250 Tea Party

I know I’ve run pretty far afield of what constitutes afternoon tea, but I wanted to do something special for St. Louis’ 250th birthday. I decided to go with some famous St. Louis foods, and a lot of fleurs-de-lis to celebrate St. Louis’ French heritage. Our soundtrack for tea was also a nod to St. Louis: Chuck Berry’s The Great Twenty-Eight.

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The tea of choice for today was French Vanilla. It was the best I could do in tying it in to the theme somehow, just because it has the word “French” in the title. I did consider using the 1904 World’s Fair connection with iced tea, but it is November, after all!

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I made a Gooey Butter cake, which is one of St. Louis’ most well-known baked goods:

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And toasted ravioli, another St. Louis favorite:

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We also had provel cheese, a St. Louis anomaly that I actually kind of like, and Volpi Roltini, which is prosciutto wrapped around mozzarella, from the meat market on The Hill:

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I made finger Jell-O in the colors of the St. Louis city flag (red, yellow, and blue, although I ended up with a cool rainbow effect where the colors blended), and shaped like fleurs-de-lis:

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And our favorite chocolate chip scones, also shaped like fleurs-de-lis:

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We also had finger sandwiches, shaped like, you guessed it, fleurs-de-lis:

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This was a kind of challenging tea party, because the theme was so different, but it was also really fun finding another way to celebrate St. Louis’ birthday that’s also unique to our family!

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Tasty Tuesday–Frankie Tocco’s

For the last several years, when we’ve gone to St. Charles, MO, for their Christmas Traditions festival, we’ve eaten lunch at Frankie Tocco’s. Even though we only go there once a year, it’s become a place that we, (the children in particular), look forward to eating at.

This year, we started with an order of the St. Louis specialty, toasted ravioli. This isn’t my favorite food, no matter where it’s made, but the children, (and Ryan), love it. I think they could have easily put away several orders, but they managed to be happy with just splitting the one.

Every year, we order two pizzas. It amazes me how much children can eat when given the opportunity. They managed to finish off an entire large cheese pizza, (and that with Ladybug having eaten a piece of the pizza Ryan and I got), before they were full. It’s definitely a St. Louis style pizza–saltine-like crust, provel cheese, etc., but it’s still pretty good.

Ryan and I got a Tocco special pizza, which had mushrooms, onions, Italian sausage, pepperoni, and Canadian bacon. It was also delicious!

I splurged, and got a dessert. But you can’t go to an Italian restaurant without ordering tiramisu!

One of these years, we may try a new place when visiting St. Charles. Then again, we are creatures of habit, and know what we like, so we may just stick with Frankie Tocco’s!