It seems that I have come full circle. All of my birthday parties growing up were pizza parties. In previous years, I tried different venues and cuisines. Unfortunately, every cuisine has its haters. Except, it seems, pizza. Wanting to maximize "the happy" at my birthday party, I picked the greatest pizza place of them all: Taste of Tuscany.
During the planning stages of the event, we mentioned that we would be providing products from the Colwell Thundering Herd Ranch for use during the meal. Uncle Dave, one of the owners and the creator of many of Taste of Tuscany's crazier dishes, was upset that he was going to miss the party on Saturday and miss trying all of the absolutely awesome Colwell products we were going to be serving. So the night before, we made a special trip to Taste of Tuscany so he could try everything.
That's obviously Designer Girlfriend pictured, not Uncle Dave. The oil on top is mandarin olive oil. The other is meyer lemon olive oil. The darker one is their 18 year old balsamic vinegar from Italy. I actually don't believe it's only 18 year. It tastes and pours like a 50.
Uncle Dave called the kitchen staff over to try some and dream up delicious uses for the stuff. One of their staff, Krista (I think that's how she spells it), devised a brilliant salad using the mandarin olive oil and the balsamic. We'll be discussing that dish momentarily.
We began the meal with Taste of Tuscany's totally awesome breadsticks. These are just their fresh pizza dough baked with cheese. These are better than the actual pizza at most other restaurants. You get bottomless breadsticks with an entree purchase, which is probably the best food value in town depending on how hungry you are.
You can have olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip the breadsticks in, or you can opt for ranch or marinara sauce. Our twist today was that we served them with Colwell Thundering Herd products. Some tasting notes:
"The only way this balsamic vinegar is actually only aged for 18 years is if they are only counting leap years."
"The mandarin olive oil really brightens up food. This stuff would make McDonalds tolerable."
"Every olive oil from here on out is going to taste completely pedestrian."
"Shame on every fancy Italian restaurant that I've ever dined at that wasn't serving Colwell olive oil."
"I would eat this stuff out of a spoon."
"I just ate it straight out of a spoon... try it."
"Oh my God. Where do I buy this stuff?"
You can find out more about the Colwell Thundering Herd Ranch and their products (and buy some) here: mandarinoliveoil.com
For my birthday, Chef Jeremy also made us some "awesomer breadsticks". These were insanely good, and even more so when dipped in Colwell balsamic vinegar and meyer lemon olive oil
Diners of all ages unanimously approved of the breadsticks.
Next up: Krista's salad using Colwell balsamic vinegar and olive oil. This was a crazy good salad made with a base of spring mix. To that, she added candied nuts, bleu cheese, beets, onions, avocados, granny smith apples, and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. Just trust me. It was spectacular. They need to put this on the menu.
The salad was so good that people ate both full platters of it even though there was a ton of food to come. Much joy was to be had.
The salad was soo good that even I ate some. Designer Girlfriend captured my confusion as I ate an unfamiliar substance that I later found out is called "lettuce". Very strange.
Daddy Actual reacting to overhearing a party guest having to explain to his future son in law what vegetables are.
And then it was time for the pizza. First up what was Chef Jeremy just called "mega combo". Taste of Tuscany has a pizza on the menu called the Fat Max. From the bottom, the Fat Max is crust, beef ravioli, crust, sauce, toppings, cheese. What he made for us today was a Fat Max base with half combination pizza toppings and half meat lovers toppings. Designer Girlfriend tried to calculate the number of Weight Watchers points per slice but the calculator had a stack overflow. This pizza was "make you forget your own name" good.
Next up was the consensus favorite: spaghetti and meatballs pizza. It's exactly what you think it is. Captain America liked it so much he borrowed one of his wife's hands so he could give it three thumbs up.
Some of the pizzas were so good they were held hostage out of my sight way down at the other end. The one on top is a veggie pizza, the one on the bottom is a combination white pizza (alfredo base instead of marinara). I tried some leftovers of those two pizzas today. Incredible.
Multiple pasta dishes came out but only one made it close enough for a photo (I didn't know I needed to bring my telephoto lenses to dinner...). This (I believe) is their Mona Lisa pasta. All the pasta dishes here are good. Chef Jeremy and Uncle Dave said they tried pastas for days until they found a supplier that made a product that they were happy to serve. They picked well.
Of course this is not an official birthday without a Cake Sister cake. Or in this case, TWO Cake Sister cakes.
Cake #1 was Cake Sister's world famous mimosa cake. The recipe for this cake underwent vigorous testing and revisions from Chomple's staff when it was invented. This stuff is always absolutely amazing.
You need to see the guts of this cake to understand just how good it is.
My actual birthday cake was a LOLcat-themed heavenly chocolate cake with biscotti liqueur. This is actually how it was presented:
YOD. THE HELLO KITTY IS NOT EDIBLE. STOP TRYING TO EAT IT.
The reactions to the cake from everyone pretty much looked like this.
So that was my birthday pizza party. I challenge anyone to find a better pizza, a better salad, a better cake, or better olive oil or balsamic ANYWHERE. Cue contented sigh...
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