Portland Pizza Tour - Nostrana

We had the pleasure of visiting Nostrana for the first time and it was incredible. Not be biased but this has by far been my favorite place yet! I want to go back and order every single item on the menu. The pizza was very traditional Italian - thin, crunchy crust that tasted like a delicious Italian baguette, house-made mozzarella (made fresh daily), rich herb flavors and a mix of Italian meats. Collectively we ordered and tried the Salumi (finocchiona salami, tomato, provolone, house mozzarella, oregano, honey, Mama Lil’s peppers), Diavola (spicy sausage, house mozzarella, provolone, tomato, Mama Lil’s peppers) and Alla Fiama (tomato, red onion, Mama Lil’s, wild oregano, spicy oil, black olives). I enjoyed all of the different flavors of each pizza. I was most surprised at how well the honey drizzle on the crust of the Salumi worked. We also were so surprised that we all loved the Alla Fiama so much since it was a cheese-less pizza, it actually had some of the best flavor of them all. The pizzas came with traditional Italian pizza scissors to cut our slices. I thought that was really fun to have control of as well.

The atmosphere was lovely and looks exactly how I wish my kitchen looked. Complete with a brick pizza oven. It was relaxing and open and the service was great. Bonus perk is that Nostrana is in a little square with other businesses and they have their own parking lot which is a really great surprise from the normal Portland street parking we are used to. It was just a fabulous evening.

The dessert menu looked so delicious and was so reasonably priced that we decided to get dessert as well. We tried the marionberry sorbet and the burnt orange gelato. They both came served with a shortbread cookie. The burnt orange gelato was my favorite, the flavor was rich and the gelato was so creamy. It was an overall culinary delight and it will be very hard to beat in my opinion.

Our ratings below -

 Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 9.5

Environment - 9.5

 Chris' Ratings

Pizza - 8

Environment - 8

 Ron's Ratings

Pizza - 9.3

Environment - 9.3

Lisa's Ratings

Pizza - 9

Environment - 9

Portland Pizza Tour - Gladstone St. Pizza and Saint Pizza Lounge

Visited Gladstone St. Pizza and Saint Pizza Lounge last week! The building is basically divided into two parts, one with a bar and one more traditional dine-in. Both serve the same pizza. We ate in the lounge for our trip. The pizza was New York style again, which we are loving! We ordered the Meat Combo pizza which had Italian Sausage, Pepperoni and Canadian Bacon. It was amazing. I mean how can you go wrong with an all meat pizza? There were so many other great pizzas that I would love to go back and try! Great experience!

Our ratings below!

Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 7.8

Environment -  7

Chris' Ratings

Pizza - 6.5

Environment - 6

Ron's Ratings

Pizza - 8.5

Environment - 8

Lisa's Ratings

Pizza - 8

Environment - 7.5

Portland Pizza Tour - Escape From New York Pizza

Escape From New York Pizza was awesome! Pizza by the slice is always really fun because we all get to try different things! On the night we went they had pepperoni, cheese, mushrooms and green peppers and onions, sausage and mushrooms. We tried all of them between the four of us! Obviously this is New York style pizza so it has the thin crust. We all had fun and tried different pizza folding techniques!

Our ratings below!

Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 7

Environment - 5

Chris' Ratings

Pizza - 6

Environment - 4

Ron's Ratings

Pizza - 7

Environment - 7

Lisa's Ratings

Pizza - 7

Environment - 4

Garage Sales 5/1/2015

Mom and I had an awesome day of sales this past weekend! Got some lovely treasures as usual. We were lucky enough to stumble upon a Nike Employee's garage sale and scored lots of shoes and snapbacks. My bother scooped up the shoes before I got pictures. Today was mostly home decor and studio stuff which was awesome!

Paid $3 each. They still have the $28 price tags on them!

Leaf bowl was $2 (brand new and still wrapped in the box!). The Aloe Vera plants were $.50 each. I wasn't intending to pair them together on my kitchen cart but I kind of love how they look! 

 Clothes are $1 each! 

 Garage Sales are the best for Christmas decor! My tree is going to look fabulous this year. And why not for $.25 an ornament?!

 More $1 clothes for the studio! Shorts were actually $.50.

 Fashion book for the studio - $1.

 This one is an imatation Prada bag but I still loved the look for a shoot. Yay for studio props!

 This chair is real leather and I am absolutely in love with it! By far my classiest furniture find yet. $35 both pieces.

Always looks for lovely seating options for the house when we have parties. I got 3 of these faux leather chairs. Paid $10 for all 3! 

Jim and Tresa's 25th Anniversary Party

Chris and I hosted a 25th anniversary party for Chris' parents last week. I had fun getting the house all prepped and everything decorated. We did a taco buffet for dinner with snacks and dessert. Fun night! Here are some of the decor photos (I was too busy cooking and hostessing during the party to take pictures then)!