oh what a night!

Mister and I just had the most wonderful evening! We went to a photography exhibit, met up with a bunch of blasts from my past, then ended the outside part of our evening with an amazing dinner at Horizons.

For anyone in the greater Philadelphia area, let me talk about the photography exhibit. It opened tonight with an artists' reception as a part of Design Philadelphia, a week of tours, exhibitions, lectures and other fun stuff. If you get a chance to wander up to Biello Martin Studio in Old City, they opened the new exhibit tonight and Naked Design will be running through the month of October. It features photography by seven different artists, posing a nude model with an item of Michael Biello's sculpture. One of these artists is my friend, Melissa J Hays and her work is wonderful - I'm not just saying that. It was great to see her, as well as a swarm of other people I haven't seen in years. A little overstimulating, but a ton of fun.

After the exhibit, Mister and I decided to make a night of it and headed over to Horizons for a gourmet vegan dinner. We both had the grilled seitan with mashed yukon potatoes and spinach. We also shared the truffled fingerling fries (another dish that always makes me say "mmmm..." with each savored bite) and a Yucatan Chopped salad. I've never seen anything like it - it was actually molded on the plate, rather than lettuce and other things thrown haphazardly around the dish (tossed, if you will) and garnished with tasty potato chip type sticks. We saved room for dessert, which was phenomenal - Autumn Parfait. It was beautiful and a delight to the tastebuds. There was some sort of cake in there, diced and sauteed seckel pears, tiny halved figs, toffee pudding, cinnamon ice cream, and topped with a coconut milk based whipped cream. It was amazing.

The highlight of my work day was when a new colleague who arrived just in time for me to share my chocolate cream cheese cupcakes brought me a sort of present. She was given Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World as a gift and she is letting me borrow it over the weekend...hopefully I'll have fun baking stories later - I looked through the book and table of contents and found more than a few recipes I'd like to try.