From the Spa to Tuscany

This weekend was so relaxing, and just what I needed after a very intense past few weeks at work.

After a morning of biking, we headed back to Mohegan Sun for an afternoon at the spa. We were each provided with one spa service to review. I chose the hot stone massage. I typically go for deep tissue or sports massage to get into the muscles that are overused running, but this time I decided to focus on massage for the purpose of relaxation, rather than seeing how much pain I could endure.

Well, it turns out that my entire right shoulder is one giant knot, so it wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was still incredibly relaxing. I asked the massage therapist the purpose of the hot stones (though I thought I knew the answer) and he said it was for the heat to loosen your muscles and the stones to provide a large, flat area to get into your muscles. I knew mentally that stress manifests itself physically, but the knot formerly known as my shoulder was a good reminder of this, and I’m trying to simplify my life where possible and am ridiculously excited for a few days downtime over Thanksgiving and then a week-long vacation (!!) over New Year’s.

We sat in the sauna both before and after our massages, and we all just relaxed and chatted. Elizabeth’s massage started an hour after ours, and we were still just relaxing when she came out. Sitting around gabbing with a group of girlfriends at a spa? I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.

We basically only left the spa because we had dinner plans at Todd English’s Tuscany at Mohegan Sun.

Looks just like the real Tuscany, right?

Julie is awesome with a straightener, and did our hair before dinner. She’s also going to move to NYC so she can do this on the regular to my hair.

We’re all just going to send out a Christmas card together. I don’t really believe in acknowledging the holiday season until after Thanksgiving, but when in Tuscany Rome?

Michelle, the awesome Mohegan Sun PR/social media woman, set us up with a private tasting at Tuscany, with an insane amount of food.

We started off with an antipasto. Elizabeth is a vegetarian, so our end of the table got the vegetarian antipasto, but I made sure to grab some proscuitto from the other antipasto. An antipasto without proscuitto is like a day without sunshine.

Next, we had the fried calamari. While I try not to lay down too many food rules for myself, I do try to stay away from calamari because I know I could easily eat an entire thing of calamari on my own. This calamari was really crunchy and had a great aoili sauce to dip it in.

Flatbreads are one of the restaurant’s specialties, so I tried their proscuitto and fig one that was being passed around the table. It had a drizzle of balsamic glaze on it. I’ve never tasted something with balsamic glaze I didn’t like. The sweetness of the balsamic glaze toned down the saltiness of the proscuitto. Though I love proscuitto, its saltiness is sometimes a bit much on pizzas. Not the case with this one.

Hey sexy ladies!

And the food just kept coming and coming. I was happy to be wearing a dress with some stretch in at this point.

Next course was the pasta course. Our choices were gnocchi or linguine with clam sauce.

I like linguine with clam sauce, but I love gnocchi. This gnocchi had ricotta both inside and on top. I try to stay away from too much dairy because it upsets my stomach, so I tried to push some of the ricotta off, but I ended up dipping it right back in.

17 courses later, we were on to the entrees. I went for the salmon because it seemed like the lightest option, and I knew I’d be stuffed by then. It still wasn’t all that light, but it was delicious. It had crispy skin and was served with Brussells sprouts, clams and Parmesan polenta.

HOLY DESSERT.

Dessert was fallen chocolate cake, which meant that chocolate oozed out of the middle. It was served atop raspberry puree and Tahitian vanilla ice cream.

I think I died of happiness for a minute at dinner, but the girls resuscitated me so that I could wouldn’t leave my fallen cake a fallen soldier. I may also have to schedule a trip to Tahiti, just for that ice cream.

Dear Internet, this is why I usually raise my eyebrows in photos. My eyes are otherwise tiny.

With nine cameras, the girls in the front row got quite a few reps of squats in.

This morning, we returned to the scene of the crime for breakfast. I had the “frittata-style” omelette, with spinach, tomato and mushroom. I asked for light goat cheese, and this was their definition of light. I think our definitions diverged a bit, but it was still delicious.

Thank you so much to Mohegan Sun for hosting us and stuffing us silly last night.

If you could get any spa treatment, what would it be? If you could do a tasting anywhere, where would it be? Babbo is definitely on my list.