The Parrot Confectionery

Since 1922 a local business has run devoted to bringing smiles and fun to a small town.
The Parrot Confectionery can proudly state it's been a classic staple as a place to be. It has shelves of candy, about a dozen red table topped booths, and it can make a MEAN parfait.

Of course, it's got it's own website to tout it's wonders and history, but it remains to be a personal favorite place of mine, and so I go back time to time to make sure it hasn't suddenly plunged off the deep end. The service is quick (the place is small so the servers see you're there) and the booths are private and vintage, with carvings in the tops.

The knick-knacks might be my favorite part. Taxidermy-d owls hover over children buying sour trout, and a juke box still puts out soda pop tunes. A dozen different pictures of parrots eye some portraits of Indian chiefs, while German made things collect memories on the shelves.

If you ask for a menu, it's all delicious things. The chili is fantastic, their varieties of soda awesome, and the milkshakes are perfection for a hot day. My parfait had ice cream, caramel and chocolate, and cashews. The cashews were lightly salted so there was a perfect mix of sweet and salty all at once. For $3.75 I found it the perfect way to end a hot work day.

Candy wise, I recommend:
Almond roca- freshly made, amazing toffee
Sour trout- an old specialty and my personal favorite
Lemon drops- they have the perfect mix of sour and long-lasting sweet
Honeycomb- the chocolate is on par with many Swiss chocolates, and the texture of the honeycomb is amazing. For the bold, dark chocolate honeycomb is simply a must.

Located at 42 N. Last Chance Gulch
Helena, Montana
59601

Website: www.parrotchocolate.com 

Quick baking tip: Lemon bars!

When making lemon bars, if you feel they aren't ever tart enough or don't have the right bite, adding a small pinch of powdered citric acid really helps!

I also highly recommend Paula Deen's recipe...but I add in about 1/4 a cup more butter.
Let's not be facetious here: butter makes everything better.

Food Porn: Palermo, Sicily! (Part One of Two)

In early January a friend and I purchased tickets to the cheapest place on the EasyJet website, not fully realizing what we were getting into.
Several weeks later we got on a train, then a plane, and then a bus to Palermo, Sicily, flying into the ancient and beautiful port city.

Palermo is in Sicily, Italy, the island off the tip of the boot- essentially being kicked. It was a trading hub for Arab traders, Greeks, and Italians alike for thousands of years, and the British even have a fair history there.
This history is prevalent on every corner and street in the city. There are Baroque churches squashed next to medieval churches and High Renaissance government buildings. Sometimes a fascist building face even appears out of nowhere- and this is essentially Palermo, in that one should expect the unexpected and realize how much the city has a history.

Palermo is also a food capital and a historical capital of Italy. For any foodie, the Vucciria food market CANNOT be missed. Danielle Pergament of the New York Times no doubt can put it better than I, (here) but my words can at least attempt to describe this marvelous market.

An absolute assault of every sense you possess. Smells of fresh seafood mix with the salt of the sea, and water is sloshed onto the ancient streets while vendors yell out their wares and carefully arrange the piles of fruit and vegetables into aesthetically pleasing stacks and rows. You are pushed and shoved into people, and the beep of Vespa's with wooden boxes on the back slice behind you, barely missing running over somebody's clumsy feet.

One could spend hours poring over the wares. Some of the market is actually made up of stalls, but others are actual businesses nestled into the centuries old buildings. My friend and I purchased some fragole from the least intimidating Sicilian, and he laughed appreciatively at our slow Italian. Stuttering what we thought was  the right tense, we asked for un mezzo kilo di fragole and watched as he scooped them up and placed them into a brown paper cone he quickly rolled together. We ended up also buying kilos of cherries, and apparently were so enthusiastic that we each were gifted DVD's of the vendor singing traditional Sicilian songs on a guitar. I still have it (sadly, I can't find a player that is compatible to the disc!) and we departed to a friendly wink and with our arms bursting with red strawberries and cherries.

The Vucciria is a shrinking feature in the city, and one that I will never forget. The temporary foray into another world so full of absolute life (and quite a bit of death) was unforgettable.

The No Sweat Cafe

If you ever stop in Helena, Montana, and are looking for a place to have a good breakfast and a different vibe, the No Sweat Cafe would be one of your options!

Located on Last Chance Gulch, the No Sweat Cafe has a wood-seat interior, with multiple small tables and booths jumbled into a small space. With a policy of no debit or credit cards, and NO cellphones, the average No Sweater is a chill patron who is enjoying themselves and good food.  Anybody seen on a cellphone will be politely asked to leave and take the call outside. All you Crackberry users or rapid fire texters might want to just breathe and accept it. Also, don't forget cash.

The menu is a delightful mix of old favorites like pancakes and French toast, with some interesting omelettes tossed in. My personal favorite is the fruit+ granola +yogurt combination. One of the best things about the No Sweat is their service. You'll immediately get a white mug of coffee which is refilled with rapid fire efficiency- if you are caffeine sensitive and don't really want that umpteenth cup of joe, politely guard your cup- it will probably be refilled at a speed that requires you to be quick yourself.

Their eggs are probably their best known asset. As one Facebook fan page user notes, "best huevos in town!" Perhaps their best feature, though, is the atmosphere. The mood inside is one of pure relaxation. Potted plants dot the walls- one corner booth has one that gently seems to intrude into the space. Large picture windows form the front of the cafe, and natural light pours in. It's a family owned place, where you bump into people you know and everybody is happy to be there. Generally the No Sweat seems to discourage intrusive technology and grouches.

Luzern: Kaffee and Apfelstrudel

The post-lunch cappuccino- it was nice and dry.

Apfelstrudel

The "tiramisu"

Once upon a time, my mother and I got to spend a day in Luzern together, eating at a lovely dark cafe (I for the life of me never write the names of the places down- I eat and leave).

Woe is the reader, for this place was delicious! My mother ordered tiramisu in German-speaking Switzerland and ended up getting a concoction that was not tiramisu (lady fingers in espresso) but rather like a parfait- and it was quite delicious! I got apfelstrudel with a custard-y sauce. Warm and delicious!

Post lunch, I ordered a cappuccino, because now that we were out of the Italian speaking part, we wouldn't be ostracized for ordering one after 10 am.

The Point of It All

Right.
So.
I eat a lot. Eating is a basic human need, something that we all do at some point or another. It's quite wonderful, right? Eating is an enjoyable thing, a behavior, a chance to socialize or just to enjoy oneself!

I've been fortunate enough to have been living abroad in Switzerland for almost two years now, and have been to some rather fantastic eating establishments and have been allowed many opportunities to stuff myself silly. Whether it be eating intestine in Istanbul, relishing some kielbasa in Krakow, or gnoshing on pizza in Palermo, it has been a truth throughout my adventures that they have been delicious.

To the amusement of my friends, much of the meals we eat are punctuated by the flashing or snapping of the various dishes we consume with my assorted collection of cameras. After years of gathering photographs,I have decided to share these photographs and culinary adventures with you people! Hey Internet!