Valentine's Day Giveaway

Love is in the air! 

To celebrate Valentine's Day, I'm having a special giveaway!

My husband makes these hearts from vintage spoons! Each spoon is hand pounded, cut and then sanded into a beautiful unique heart! They are incredibly time consuming but so beautiful! Everyone is so surprised when they find out the heart was from a spoon!  I put the smaller one on a short sterling chain and the other two on chunkier gun metal chains. One lucky person will win a vintage spoon heart necklace! If you'd like to enter the giveaway here is the scoop:

You will get one "entry" for each one of the following that you do:

1. Post a link on your blog mentioning this contest.

2. Become a follower of my blog.

3. Post a comment below.

4. send me an email

The drawing will be on Sunday, February 14.

Good luck!

(If you have an old spoon that you'd like me to make into a heart, email me for details!)

Little Italy Mercato week 3

Last Saturday was another beautiful day at the Mercato! Of course we started with a latte from Joe's on the Nose and then went right over to Loic Patisserie  for this awesome fruit tart.It had  fresh strawberries and blackberries along with a rich pastry cream and fresh whipped cream-yum!

After a couple of hours of selling and meeting lots of dogs on their way to the dog park, it was time for lunch. We decided to try the gourmet tamales. Mine had feta, spinach, corn and tomatillos-pretty good. They were from Gourmet Tamales of Carlsbad. I generally don't eat tamales but the combination of feta and spinach was perfect-spanikopita anyone?

Before packing up we needed to decide on dinner. We knew we had to pick something other than pasta. As I was walking through the crowd I spotted a new booth with deep dish pizza! My husband loves Giordanos in Chicago and I knew he'd have to try this! We brought home a par-baked pepperoni pizza and 20 minutes later had a great dinner. It was definitely as good as Giordanos' take-home version. I can't wait to try their spinach & mushroom next time. The pizza is available at the Mercato and  for delivery ONLY from

 Berkeley Pizza .

We're taking next week off from The Mercato but hope to see you there on Saturday, January 30!

Are you ready for some football?

Buddy was all set for the Charger game yesterday but,the San Diego Chargers were not destined to go to the Superbowl. Maybe next year!

Little Italy Mercato week 2

It's week 2 at The Little Italy Mercato and I designed some new Dog jewelry in honor of all of the dogs that come to the market each week. Each pendant is a vintage chandelier crystal with an image from a vintage dictionary glazed onto the back. The piece is wire wrapped and finished with swarovski crystals. The vintage images are truly unique. Unfortunately, all breeds are not available.

It's very early at The Mercato as we wait for Joe's on The Nose to open. Our lattes are artfully decorated with a foamy milk heart. We take our lattes and head over to Loic Patisserie for blueberry scones. (We really want to try a new pastry booth this week but they are the only one open as we are setting up!). After a busy day of selling, my husband tries the Pad Thai at Saranya & The Black Thai. It was good but I went for the Eggplant Parmesean from....sorry, the photo didn't come out!

The eggplant was perfect, just enough breading, light fresh tomato sauce and a small hunk of bread. Yum! Ok, the pasta my husband picked out to take home this week? Lemon Basil linguine! I think we've had lemon basil something for 3 weeks now, we need a new flavor. But-it was excellent with their sundried tomato pesto-I could eat the pesto alone with a loaf of bread :)

Hope to see you next week at The Mercato!

Little Italy Mercato

Don't you just love Farmer's markets? Last weekend I set up at the Little Italy Mercato on Date Street. The food and scenery were unbelievable. Only in San Diego can you be outside in short sleeves on January 2nd, facing the bay,eating scones and drinking lattes. I'll be there each weekend and will share with you the exciting foods we eat each week, sort of Julie & Julia meet The Mercato!

Our first stop while setting up was Joe's on The Nose for a vanilla latte. Perfect! There was even a design on the foamed milk! To go with the latte, we headed over to Loic Patisserie for a chocolate croissant and raspberry scone, dee-lish!

I couldn't figure out why there were so many dogs at the market until I realized there was a dog park right behind us. And...between me and the dog park there were Bocce Ball courts! There were 5 elderly gentleman playing bocce ball and speaking in Italian. They made me laugh and think of my dad who grew up on the streets of New York. My grandfather was a fruit peddlar and my dad had the task of "bouncing" the melons on the sidewalk so they would seem ripe (I hope he was kidding).

My husband bought lemon basil angel hair pasta to take home to cook and it was the best (I'll have the name of the vendor for you next week!). There is nothing like fresh pasta! We are committed to try a new pasta each Saturday. I can't wait to try a new flavor this weekend!

Fabulous flowers

Stunning view of the bay...

So,...if you are looking for a Saturday Farmer's Market, meet me at The Mercato in Little Italy.