Osteria. A little slice of Italy

We tried this little Italian restaurant about a year ago on a whim and loved it so much that my sweet husband made reservations to surprise me for Mother’s Day. He wanted to do something special for me since we had to be up in Palo Alto again on this special day. 

It’s located in the heart of downtown Palo Alto, and it’s just so quaint. We were seated right by the window so we could do plenty of people watching during dinner. Of course right across the street is another restaurant that looks pretty cool. Next week we’ll check that place out.

We started with a nice smooth glass of Italian cabernet. It paired quite nicely with the bread and olive oil they served before the appetizers came out. We ordered the Italian meatballs in a red sauce for our appetizer, which is definitely a change of pace for me. I think I always go for the bruschetta at any Italian restaurant. But since I was planning on a meatless entree, meatballs seemed like a good choice. They did not disappoint. I love Italian meatballs, and the fact that they weren’t on a bed of spaghetti noodles only enhanced their flavor. 

Next up was the dinner salad, butter leaf lettuce with blue cheese crumbles and Italian dressing. A-mazing! I’ve recently developed a thing for blue cheese. I love it. Which is weird, because I used to hate blue cheese. 

The entree that I ordered was delicious. Spinach ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese in a red sauce. I cleaned up my plate that’s for sure. C’s dinner was a little less exciting (they can’t all be good). It was one of the specials of that day; the menu said ‘Duck leg’, and since he’s always wanted to try duck he went ahead and ordered it. It was definitely not a duck leg. It was maybe a fraction of a duck leg, shredded up with a lot of noodles in a butter sauce. Not quite what you have in mind when you order  $34 worth of duck leg. We usually ask the waiter/waitress for recommendations, and for some reason we didn’t this time. We will definitely be doing that from now on that’s for sure. Lesson learned. 

Everything else was delicious, I’m not sure what my favorite dish was. I loved the bread with the olive oil. There were little flavorful pieces of olives in the olive oil, and the bread was super fresh and soft. The meatballs were pretty yummy too, but I think the wine just tied it all together. 

Until next week…

The cancer update

Another week at the Stanford clinic. It’s starting to feel like our home away from home. At every visit they I’m asked to fill out a little survey about how I’m feeling on a scale of one to ten. I circle a nine every time because I really do feel great, but I have cancer so I can’t really circle a ten. I still don’t see how I can be feeling so good and have cancer, it doesn’t make sense. Half the time I feel like I’m faking it. That being said, I guess it’s a huge blessing that I had that rash to indicate that the cancer was still camping out in my body. Because if it wasn’t for the rash, the doctors probably wouldn’t have detected this until it was much more advanced. I thank God for that ‘gift’ every day.

I never thought I could get so excited about my blood test results. I’m sitting here, and it’s a Tuesday morning (yes I know, I’m a day late with the blog) and I keep checking my phone for my test results. I knew they were decent because if they are too low or just off then the doctors will discontinue the treatment. Which, honestly, kind of scares the crap out of me. That’s why I am so diligent about making sure I eat enough of the right kind of food. It’s a little nerve wracking every Monday morning playing the ‘will my counts be good?’ game. I’ve had to completely reverse my relationship to food. I basically just eat everything my dad can’t – he’s a heart patient – and then I add in a lot of leafy greens and try to get a shot of wheat grass every day.  Starving myself to lose weight right now is not an option. It turns out eating (good) food is healthy. Who knew? 

The appointments are getting easier, and shorter, thank goodness. This time we were out of there by 11:00 a.m. This is how it works: when you have an appointment with a cancer doctor at 9:00 a.m. you actually have an appointment at at the lab at 8:00 a.m. because they want you there an hour early for blood work. That way they can have the results of the blood tests at your actual appointment. And you want to be a little early for that 8:00 a.m. thing just in case it’s busy in the lab, and you must always plan extra time for the traffic. After the blood is collected (which can be an ordeal all by itself because my veins are a little scarred from chemo, and not very big to begin with, they usually use a pediatric needle on me) we head over to the lymphoma clinic and wait to be called back to a little room. It’s usually a short wait, they are pretty streamlined there. They ‘take my vitals’ temp, blood pressure, heart-rate, and oxygen level, then I get my pictures taken (still don’t really like this part), and then we wait for all the doctors to come in. Yesterday there were 6 lab coats in the room with us. They ask a lot of questions, it is a research project after all, someone checks all my lymph nodes and my skin, go over my lab results, and send me on my way. This is all going so well, the doctors are very happy with the way things are going. It’s all such an answer to prayer.

I just hope and pray it things keep going so well.

 to be continued….