I Have a Carb Monster Living Inside of Me

I am the quintessential carb-aholic. My biggest weakness is pasta! I am in love with this food stuff. There is not a linguini, rotini or tortellini that I have not adored. I loved pasta before I moved to Italy and albeit I didn't stay there for 12 years just for the food ...it was a pretty close second. Food in Italy is treated like a lover. It's decadent, it's dreamy, it makes you close your eyes and feel heaven with every forkful... I could not believe the dedication the Italians had to food. Individualized shops for every ingredient, from cheese shops (they have over 2500 traditional varieties) to bread shops, focaccia bakeries, butchers, fish mongers, olive shops, dried herbs and spices. The list goes on and on but you get my point. Of course, amongst all of these glorious, delectable stores, sights and smells are the fresh pasta stores. "Pastifici" - sold by the "etto" (100grams), little golden coloured gems of fresh pasta, filled or not, long or short, made with various types of flour depending on local traditions and seasonal ingredients. It's bloody marvellous and I was transfixed, mesmerized and left wanting to try everything...maybe I did.. twice!

Now, I lived in the most beautiful part of Italy (not biased at all), a city called Genoa and the home to many a culinary creation including two of my favourite all time foods, Pesto and Focaccia! Historians claim that Genoa is the birthplace of Focaccia and Pesto while other Culinary Gurus claim different - all I know is that I have tasted both in other regions of Italy and there is No Contest, so if for some blip in history they did not originate in Genoa well they certainly are the winners at making the best of both now! I'm not sure that this blog post is really conducive to weight loss blog because I can literally hear my stomach gurgling as I am typing this out....what the hell was I thinking ... ah yes Carb Monster..

Pasta - did you know that Sophia Loren attributes her curves to pasta? Yes that is right, her quote. Obviously she was eating a different brand of pasta than I was eating because my curves looked nothing like hers, thank you! However Italians do eat pasta daily and as a nation they do not have the obesity problems that we face in North America. The word moderation springs to mind because I know for myself, when I prepared pasta while living abroad I did not measure the 85gr portion indicated on the side of the packet. Rather, half the bag went into the boiling water with the thought process that I would have leftovers for a few days so I might as well just cook it all at once! HA! (The road to hell is paved with what intentions now?) But I would eat the whole thing, if not in one sitting, certainly by the end of the day. It was too good. The cheese that was added was delicious and the sauce, be it pesto or fresh walnut or beef ragu.. You see? You see? I am surprised looking back that I didn't gain all of my weight while living there. In fact I only reached 210. However the baggage, those bad eating habits, that I brought back assisted with me gaining an additional 110 lbs. I became a Monster carb-aholic and this time I had recipes!