somethin' in the works

Yes.... I know I suck at posting recently.  I'm sorry.  But you're tired of hearing me apologize for sporadic posting anyway, aren't you?

I could babble about why I haven't been posting but it comes down to this: I don't find it interesting to post about recipes I've made multiple times and if I don't have anything interesting or entertaining to say, I don't want to post just for the sake of keeping up the blog.

Stick with me, folks.  Not giving away anything just yet, but stay tuned - something's coming.

Soon.

:)

While we're waiting, though, why don't you page through some of my older posts?  I used to put together some fairly entertaining posts when I was still figuring out this crazy cooking thing!  Pick a post you enjoyed, then click on one of the tags for other posts like it.  Or, just pick a random past month to check out.

If you want to laugh at someone being completely random and scatterbrained, check out December of any year and January of 2010.
If you want to think deeply, check out October 2009 or the tag Operation Gratitude Attitude (November through December 2009).
If you like faerietales, read the posts I wrote about PIFA, either by using the PIFA tag or by going to April 2011.
If you want to know more about the information that led to my decision to "go vegan," check out my multi-part review of Skinny Bitch between August and October of 2010.
If you need a suggestion, leave me a comment with what you want to read about/learn and I'll point you in the right direction.

No food pictures because you've seen them all before.  How about an Angst picture?

How about his Greatest Hits?

See you soon!

winning!

God bless Charlie Sheen.  That man is completely out of his mind, as well as touch with reality.  Unfortunately, I don't think there will ever come a time he will be old and wise enough to look back over some recent interviews and be embarrassed.  I think he truly believes he is winning (and since he's not dead yet, I guess he is).

Fortunately, everyone can win sometimes!  I would not classify my overall life as "winning" and I spend more time than I should dwelling on ways I've disappointed myself, but I've had a few great days lately (though some could definitely be better described as "bi-winning," thank you, Charlie).  Oh, and by the way - Happy May!

Last night, I issued myself another Basket Challenge, since I didn't go food shopping until today.  Well, let me back up - we almost went out to dinner last night, but then we remembered it was Saturday and we don't like crowds of annoying people falling all over the place while we try to walk to a restaurant.  Mister framed it like this: "Why don't we go out tomorrow night, when it's nicer out?"  It was actually cooler today, so.... anyway, I ran up to Superfresh to grab a couple of ingredients and then made a new recipe that I think requires at least one more making before I share the recipe, but I'll show you pictures:

So pretty and colorful while sauteing

Pretty and tasty, though it does need "something more"

So then, with PIFA over, taking with it all of my reasons to screw around and not be productive on my one day off, I did make my way to about a half a dozen shops today to accomplish various errands.  When I set out to start shopping, I wanted to head over to Williams-Sonoma before it closed - I "needed" a flat whisk.  I've been resisting getting one because I already have 5 whisks in various sizes, but I have made one of the items on our new menu before, using one of those 5 whisks, and let me tell you - it doesn't work.  I really needed a flat whisk to make this recipe work.  Here begins a small comedy of errors.

I walked out the door and headed west because as long as I was going that way anyway, I wanted to stop into Salon Sugar and make an appointment to cover up my grays before the upcoming wedding season.  That accomplished, I headed up to Spruce Street to catch a bus to Center City West because I wanted to save a little time.  As the bus was approaching, I pulled out my April Trailpass...and realized it was May.  I put it away and started my trek up to the train station where I waited in the longest line I've ever seen there (people overflowing from the serpentine pen!) and got my new Trailpass so I don't miss the train waiting in line tomorrow... anyway, since the station is only a few blocks from my desired destination, I just strolled down Broad Street, amazed at how clean it was after yesterday's huge PIFA street fair.

It's not every day you see a ferris wheel in the middle of Broad Street in Philadelphia, so I think a person could logically say the PIFA went out in style...

Anyway, after procuring my whisk, I headed across the street to MAC...I mean...I was up there anyway.... whereupon a nice young man with almost as much mascara and slightly less eyeliner than me proceeded to paint my lips with the "perfect" berry shade.  A few moments later and lighter of purse, I headed down to Whole Foods to continue the spending spree for this menu:

1. Penne with Spinach and Chickpeas in Garlic Sauce from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures.  I have had this book for years and neither Mister nor I have a clue where it came from.  We know it came home from one of his tours with him, but we don't know how it got in his bags.  Anyway, I have several favorite recipes in here that have been neglected while I played with my shiny new books.  I decided to blow the dust off the cover and flip through for some old-timey goodness.

2. Spicy Ragout of Vegetables and Tofu, also from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures.  Whereas I have made #1 on many, many occasions, I have never attempted this recipe, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

3. Sloppy Joes from The Urban Vegan.  I am so looking forward to the new book coming out I kind of can't stand it.  So, while I wait, I'm revisiting some favorites from book #1 and living in the world-traveling, cosmopolitan faerietale world Dynise has constructed for me.

4. Granada Paella, also from The Urban Vegan.  This is my favorite Paella recipe and one of my favorites from the book.  I love the way it tastes and once everything it chopped and in the pot, I can just putter around my kitchen, say, sorting through and throwing out a week's worth of neglected mail.  Not that I would let something like that pile up.  Just a hypothetical situation...

5. Orecchiette con Broccoli, also from The Urban Vegan.  This is the recipe I "needed" the flat whisk for, provoking my travels all around Center City today (in the course of which I found a little hidden/secret kitchen toy store on Walnut St called Kitchenette.  Next time I have a ton of money and nothing to spend it on - yeah, right - I will go there for a shopping spree).

6. Punjabi Peppers and Tofu from La Dolce Vegan.  Just because it's been way too long since the last time I made this. 

Before I tell you about dinner, I want to introduce you to my new kitchen assistant:

Great company while chopping, dicing, sorting, and sauteing.

Tonight, instead of going out, I offered Mister a choice of cuisines (mainly because I couldn't make up my mind between 4 and 6), and asked him if he'd prefer Indian or Spanish.  Apparently, my husband is able to make the distinction between Mexican and Spanish, and therefore recognize how infrequently we eat latino food that isn't inspired by the southern-most tip of the continent, so he chose Granada Paella.

I'm so lucky to have such a pretty measuring dish to measure my one cup of diced red pepper! I don't usually measure the red pepper - I normally just get one pepper, dice it and call it a day.  However, my pepper choices this afternoon included tiny, misshapen, mutant peppers at Whole Foods or the hugest red peppers I've ever seen at Superfresh.  I figured two of the huge ones would equal the three normal-sized ones I had intended to purchase, so in order to make sure I had enough peppers for the other meals, I actually measured this time.  How could I help it when I have such gorgeous kitchen tools?

Doesn't that look delicious?  Believe me - it is.  Now that Mister and I have figured out the hidden location of vegan chorizo sausage, I will make it 100% true to recipe next time, but this time I still diced some Italian-style Tofurky, which is still awesome.

I may not have as much money as Charlie Sheen, or as much fame or nice things or notoriety, and I certainly don't have two "goddesses," but every bite of dinner tonight told me that I most certainly am "winning."

best day ever (picture parade)

I remember a lovely spring/summer day when I was off of work for a reason I can't remember (probably because my car was broken).  In any case, almost every time I have a weekday (that isn't Friday) off from work, I arrange to have lunch and a tour of the city I love with the man I love.  No, not Mister (though I do love him dearly) - my dad.  On this particular day in my memory, Dad and I had a light lunch and then went over to the National Constitution Center for a quick stroll.  My dad, in a moment of shock and awe about my ignorance to my own neighborhood, appalled that I could live near the most historical part of the country and not play tourist more frequently said the following:
"You need to get out more."

There's nothing like your dad telling you to get out more to drive home your reclusive tendencies.

So, [a little late] I took his advice.  I took yesterday off from work so I could enjoy my city and it was delightful!  Let's start the parade!

I can't remember exactly where this is (and I'm sure the owners of this home appreciate that), but it's somewhere on an east-west street in Society Hill if you want to go on a scavenger hunt.

I was super organized about my day off (anyone surprised?) because I wanted to be sure I packed as much PIFA goodness and "me time" into the daylight hours as possible - the night belonged to another terrific outing, but of a completely different nature.

Anyway, as I was walking along, the colorful window boxes and urns full of flowers caught my eye.  Please - look at those flowers - that's an understatement.  At first I felt funny standing outside someone's home taking pictures of their flowers, but then I decided that if they didn't want other people to enjoy them, they wouldn't have put them out in their "front yard" like that.

my sister was named after these delicate white blossoms

I was passing by on my way toward Washington Square, which is becoming quite green and beautiful.  I must admit, I love the Square in the winter, when the trees are bare and establish an incredible contrast against fallen snow, but the Square really is gorgeous in every season.

On the southeast corner of the square sits Locks Gallery.  I've passed this building hundreds of times but since I work odd hours, it's always been closed.  I honestly had no idea whether it was a really fancy hair salon ("locks"?  why not?) or an actual art gallery.  Turns out it is the latter and they are hosting an exhibit of surreal art as part of PIFA: The Insolent Eye - Jarry in Art

If you maximize and/or squint at this photo, you can see that the building was erected only 7 years after we established ourselves as an independent country.  I think that's pretty darn cool.

I also think these chairs are pretty darn cool and would love to have one in my home.  I wonder what one would need to do to get one (besides steal it or become an overnight millionaire).  It looks like you're sitting on a cello.

Honestly, that was probably my favorite part of the gallery, and it was just a chair in an educational room - not part of the exhibit.  I don't actually like surrealism, aside from my love of David Lynch movies, but that's quite a different thing.  I just figured I'd stop in on my way to the exhibit I was totally psyched about, hosted by the Athenaeum, on the eastern side of the Square.

approaching the Athenaeum

I love the architectural details of this building.  Not too coincidentally, the exhibit hosted as part of PIFA deals with French influence on Philadelphia's architecture.  Bastille to Broad Street is a beautiful and very educational exhibit that I strongly encourage all residents of this fine city to attend - for heaven's sake, it's free - you have nothing to lose.

I love Philadelphia's buildings.  I love the juxtaposition of old and new mixed throughout the city, especially in my little radius of "home," which roughly includes Queen Village, Society Hill/Independence Mall, and Old City.  Being the eastern-most neighborhoods, it makes sense that they are also the oldest and most historically rich neighborhoods in the city.  I could spend hours (and I have) just wandering around my neighborhood and looking at the old buildings, or the 18th century home just next to the modern, urban, severe townhouse built at the turn of the 21st century.

For another tour of my neighborhood, click here.

After delighting myself with tales of the Eastern State Penitentiary being modeled after the Bastille and the Champs-Elysees providing inspiration for Benjamin Franklin Parkway, connecting the Art Museum to City Hall, I headed over to the Kimmel Center for a little music and a light lunch.

I haven't been to the Kimmel Center as many times since it opened in 2001 as I have been in the past month.  Nevertheless, I believe I will miss the Eiffel Tower and its little airborne city of planes and trains (representing the foremost technology and innovation in the early part of the 20th century in France).  It takes such a nice picture.

What I came for, though, was the promise of a lunchtime piano concert.  I had no idea what to expect - it could be jazz for all I knew - but I wanted to watch someone other than my students play.  Turns out I couldn't possibly have gone on a better day.  I stopped to get some coffee in the plaza and nearly spilled it in my mad dash over to the small performance area when I heard someone that wasn't me playing my favorite Chopin Nocturne (E minor).  I have never heard anyone else play that tune and I think I held my breath almost the whole time.  That hooked me, obviously, and I remained to watch Larisa Kifyak play some of my favorite melodies on a gorgeous Steinway & Sons grand piano. 

After a decent cup of coffee and 90 minutes of auditory bliss, I decided to investigate the ladies' room on the lower level of the Kimmel.  Immaculately clean, as I expected it would be, the design was also surprisingly modern.  Although the Kimmel itself certainly departs from the Academy with its geometric shapes and clean lines, the restroom still made me feel as though I'd left the concert hall in favor of a hip, urban night club/bar.  I thought the mirrors were neat (circles with a ring of light around them) and as I was checking myself out, I noticed the light was making a killer reflection in my eyes, so I decided to snap a picture.  I'm glad no one came in - they probably would have thought I'd lost my mind.

I left the Kimmel and continued west, toward Rittenhouse Square.  On my way to the Rosenbach Museum, I passed a small coffee shop with the following boastful sign:

If you don't know why it's awesome to have Stumptown coffee in Philadelphia, please pay Jess a visit at Get Sconed!

I visited the Rosenbach and was enlightened, captivated, and inspired by their exhibit on James Joyce in Paris.  Think me an ignoramus if you must, but I have not been all that familiar with him.  I hope to change that going forward, especially when I learned of the great admiration F. Scott Fitzgerald (one of my favorite authors) had for him.  This is the only exhibit I had to pay for and I'll tell you - I got my $10-worth.  Go.

I stopped into Williams Sonoma for some Easter presents for my nephews, one of whom drew this beautiful picture:

I think it's called "Mommy (L) and Aunt Natalie (R) go shopping"

Anyway, after all of those adventures, I came home and made an early dinner, since Mister and I had exciting evening plans.  It was a little mind-blowing to cook and eat dinner when the sun was still up, but the flavor of Isa's 2nd Avenue Vegetable Korma from Appetite for Reduction certainly distracted us.

It didn't photograph terribly well, which is bound to be the case when part of the cooking process involves boiling the veggies for about 10 minutes.  They tasted great, though, and the jasmine rice thirstily absorbed the excess broth before Mister could get too upset about it.

After dinner, we polished ourselves off a bit and then headed up to the Trocadero to see a fabulous band from just across the [Delaware] river - Symphony X. 

Some friends of ours were in two of the three opening bands, so it was nice to see them and talk to them, but we went for Symphony X and were not disappointed.  They put on a far better show than I anticipated - the frontman is huge and has quite a presence, not to mention, he can really sing.  They played a lot of our favorite songs (which isn't hard when most songs are our favorite songs), including a 25 minute long encore that was a single "song," The Odyssey.  As you can probably imagine, it tells the tale of Homer's Odyssey and it is as epic as the piece of literature upon which it's based - after all, it's too long to post on YouTube in one piece!

It was a fabulous day, full of Me time and Me-n-Mister time...I was walking on air and slept like the dead.  Believe me, much like the day after the Gala, it was an epic struggle to go to work today.  Every time I passed a PIFA poster, I just wanted to turn around and play hooky.  Please do yourselves a favor, if you live in the Philadelphia area (and by that I mean, within a 6 hour drive), spend a day doing PIFA stuff before it ends on May 1st.  See the website for a full listing of events, but please, GO!

2 ways to pre-game Friday

Today is kind of like Friday Part One.  I took tomorrow off from work because Mister and I have big plans.  Well, actually, Mister's and my big plans could have been accomplished by taking a half day, but I decided to take advantage of the fact that PIFA is still going on and avail myself on some free arts stuff.

Some women go to a salon/spa to pamper themselves.  I go to museums and live music with food carts.

Today was also an interesting food day.  It was Hot Dog Day at work.  It never fails to completely astonish me how much crappy food we serve our employees at a weight loss company.  This year's Hot Dog Day was only more civilized than last year's in two small ways:

1. We managed to avoid polluting Earth Day with our little tubes of nitrates and leftover skin.
2. We managed to avoid the novelty of a fat and toothless man serving hot dogs from his little cart.

Apart from that, it served as a reminder of two more things:

1. Just because we work for a company trying to establish itself as a total wellness solution and just because we aim to teach overweight and obese people how to establish healthy eating habits while losing weight on our program does not mean we feed our employees healthy food.

2. If there is something novel available, like, say, veggie dogs, people will choose that over their pink tubes of manipulated meat out of pure curiosity.  Unfortunately, this can end with no food for the people who can only eat the veggie dogs...people like me.

I'm trying to "be the bigger person" (not literally, obviously) and look at this from a generous and enlightened perspective, but there are two points at war within me:

1. I really, really want to focus on how awesome it was that so many meat-eaters voluntarily chose to eat something that was not dead.  I want to be happy for their excellent choice of a [albeit processed] vegetarian protein over their usual choice of rotting, preserved flesh.  I want to believe that running out of veggie dogs before the event was half over will indicate to management that there is a larger interest in good, non-meat options than they originally thought and that this revelation will result in more veggie choices in future events.

2. I wish they had "reserved" at least enough for the known vegetarians, and allowed omnis to eat "extras."  I mean, really.  I, like everyone else, had believed the company was feeding me today, so I did not bring lunch.  Them running out of veggie dogs resulted in me having to buy my lunch at the cafe, who, fortunately, had vegetarian lentil soup for me to dunk my naked hot dog rolls in.

In any case, I was happy to head home at the end of a very busy and hungry day and find that Mister was actually awake and alert.  I had nothing to say last night because when I got home, Mister was passed out in the dark in the bedroom, got up for about an hour and a half before giving up and going back to bed.  In the absence of a formal, cooked dinner, I had a grilled peanut butter sandwich and a plate of strawberries.  It was a nice little dinner, but nothing to blog about, especially since the strawberries could have been a lot closer to in season.  Speaking of seasons, I know Mister and I are quite ready to wave Allergy Season goodbye.

So, despite Mister's ambivalent hunger, I set about making Mediterranean Chickpeas and Vegetables, from the July 1998 Cooking Light magazine.  Click the meal name for the recipe - and you should - it's tasty and very easy.  If you have precooked rice, or use a faster cooking rice like Basmati or Jasmine, or even a fast-cooking grain like bulgur or couscous, you can easily get this on the table in 30 minutes, which was exactly what I was aiming to do.

It has been such a long time since we've had this that I'm pretty sure I've never served it in those bowls...which we got the first Christmas after we were married (2007).  See, it took me quite a long time to find my cooking "wings" so for the first several years of our vegetarian lives together, I just kind of made the same things in an ever-widening rotation.  I was always trying to learn new recipes, I just hadn't become confident enough in my ability to cook to take as many chances as I do now.  So, before I learned how fun it is to be adventurous in your menu selection, even if it leads to disaster from time to time, we would generally do a rotation of pizza, pasta, veggie burgers w/fries, pizza, rice and beans, my own weak version of veggie lo mein, pizza, and rice cooked in vegetable broth with whatever vegetables I found palatable that day sauteed in some olive oil with not quite enough garlic.  And pizza - did I mention that?  Yeah, Mister and I ate a lot of pizza when we stopped eating animals.

Anyway, this had a high priority in our rotation because it was the first time I thought to combine canned tomatoes with the sauteed veggies and definitely the first time I realized you could have beans (chickpeas) and rice AND veggies - I know, it blew my mind at the time, too.  So, I probably overdid it a bit, so when I started building my cookbook collection, it fell away.

I'm glad I made it and I'll probably try to remember to make it a little more frequently than once every 3 years or so, because it's really good and simple.  I always enjoy the recipes that involve bay leaves because they lend such a bizarre flavor to dishes; smoky, like I mentioned.

Anyway, I have some French wine to drink in preparation for my day of French fun tomorrow.  I'm so glad I decided to take the day off - I so enjoyed the PIFA gala and I've wanted to attend far more than I have, but alas... that whole pesky working-6-days-a-week thing gets in the way of a lot of things I want to do.  I plan to enjoy every moment of tomorrow and hope to capture as much as I can on film so we can have a little picture party tomorrow night in preparation for Real Friday.

Bonne nuit et Beaux rêves, mes amis, à demain!

sunday, windy sunday

Aside from the near-cyclonic winds blowing down through the concrete jungle today (and by the way, Chestnut Street makes a mighty fine wind tunnel), it was a gorgeous sunny day.  It seems like ordinarily, I spend gorgeous sunny days in my cube farm, alternately wishing I was outside and wishing my office had no windows.  Today, though, I spent the whole day wandering around Philadelphia with my dear sister, delighting in one another, the sunshine, and a feeling of glamour that can only come from shopping (with a side of gossip).

You want Hollywood glamour?  Look no further than this incredible consignment store find - a black, sequined mini-dress, shrouded by a sheer black-and-white, leopard print (sometimes) overlay with a train.  We were daring each other to wear it to Brother's wedding next month in between giggles.  After all, the whole point of the trip was to find a fabulous dress for the wedding.

Bohemian Barbie

Backyard BBQ Barbie

1920s Glamour-puss Barbie

I am so blessed to have such a stunning sister - when I look at her, I think how serendipitous it was that her parents named her after a Greek goddess - this lady should be in magazines and on some billboard on Times Square.

This lady should not.  No, I did not leave with that hat - it stayed in the store where it belongs.  I did get a snazzy scarf (50% off!) that Mister said looks exactly like my other scarves; I explained that it was different - this one has tinsel woven in.

The most clever back-door-protection I've seen.
Arcadia Boutique on Rittenhouse Square

Eco-Chic Barbie

By the way - in case you were wondering - nothing looks bad on her.  She is simply breath-taking!  In addition to playing Runway Model, I also had fun walking down the streets of Philadelphia with her and watching all the guys checking her out.

After we had exhausted ourselves and most of the clothing stores we were interested in, we stopped into a few other places - the Borders closing sale, the Kimmel Center so she could see the Eiffel Tower, and Anthropologie, where I haven't been in forever.  We had fun poking through the clothes and oddities, and then came upon a table full of houseware treasures.  We examined a set of [presumably] hand-painted measuring "cups" and after a discussion on how I still need beautiful things to be functional, dear Sister scooped up the cups I had been admiring and headed for check-out.  Over my protests, she explained that she had to buy me a housewarming gift since she didn't get to help me clean when we first moved in.

Have I mentioned I love this girl?

After Anthropologie, we stopped into Starbucks for the first iced coffee beverages of the year, which we sipped through funny green straws as we walked home through sunshine and flower petals.

Lots of petals.  I wish they would stop raining, actually.  But it was still a lovely scene, and a cat hung out with us a few minutes, too, so that's always fun.

Once I had bored Mister half to death with my new measuring cups and scarf, I went out to be a responsible adult.  In other words, I went food shopping....for this menu:

1. 2nd Avenue Vegetable Korma from Appetite for Reduction, since I failed to make this last week.  Mainly, because Mister failed to be awake for dinner.

2. Jerk Seitan on Coconut Rice, both from Vegan With A Vengeance; same story as above. 

3. Garlicky Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Basil.  Aside from the pretty recipe box I was given at my bridal shower 4 years ago, I have no idea where this recipe came from.  I'm not too sad about that  because it's just barely a recipe.  It sure makes for a tasty (and simple) pasta dish, though.

4. Mediterranean Chickpeas and Vegetables from an old issue of Cooking Light magazine.

5. Mediterranean Pasta with Artichokes, Olives, and Tomatoes, from an old issue of Body + Soul magazine.  This is one of the first pasta dishes I made that did not involve a heavy red sauce, so it has a special place in my heart.  Oh, and it's also hella delicious.

6. Spicy Black Bean Burritos, adapted from the original red-and-white-checkered Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, lovingly given to me by my mother before I had figured out how to cook.  I've made the recipe straight before, but Mister and I agree that it tastes far better when wrapped up in a soft, salty tortilla.

So, tonight, I has happy to be able to employ the help of two of my new measuring dishes:

flaked coconut never looked so pretty

I love jasmine rice anyway, but it's far prettier now

After oohing and aahing over my pretty dishes, I got to work on Jerk Seitan on Coconut Rice, which is hardly a one-pot meal.  It's actually more like a three-pot meal, if you must know.  It smelled so delicious and so tropical, between the coconut, cinnamon, and lime scents filling the air.  To tell the truth, my hands still smell like the three limes I juiced (two for the marinade and one for the rice).

The Coconut Rice recipe yields a huge amount, so although there were no leftovers of the peppers and seitan, there is leftover rice.  I'm contemplating turning it into an easy-to-reheat breakfast cereal, although it could come in handy as a base for the Korma.  I guess you'll just have to check back and see what happens!

Bon Soir, mes amis!

(sorry.  too much PIFA)

streetwalkers and subtle hints

By the way, those two things don't really go together in real life.

For the moment, trusting that most of my readers are female, I'm going to go out on a limb and work under the assumption that I'm not the only one who's seen (loves, and owns) Pretty Woman.  I mean, if you're anywhere near my age, it was kind of a rite of passage, right?

So, follow me just a moment - I swear it will all connect.  A couple of nights ago we had Pasta Puttanesca from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals for the first time in a long time.  I always get a kick out of the legend behind this piquant sauce - there are two rumors I favor:

1. The sauce is so good, you just can't resist... (kinda stupid)
2. The sauce, being made up pretty much completely from pantry staples, was easy to put together after a long night of work, when the "ladies of the night" were hungry and a bit...ahem...worn out.

I definitely prefer the second legend - despite the vulgar nature of the legend, it also seems a little more romantic in its dark realism.  I mean, the sauce is good, but it's not irresistible.  Unlike Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

How's that for a segue?

Anyway, in one of the opening scenes, you see Julia's character, Vivian - a hooker - using the fire escape from her apartment to sneak past her landlord, since the money box she and her roommate (also a hooker) keep in the toilet tank is empty.  Classy.  Anyway, she heads over to a bar where she expects to find her friend, and she does, and right before the two of them "head to work," her friend (Kit) puts a bunch of cocktail garnishes - cherries, orange segments, olives - in a napkin to have a snack.

My thought is that that is probably more representative of the way hookers dine.

Maybe Italian streetwalkers are different.  I mean, if I had the choice of eating a paper napkin full of formaldehyde-soaked cherries, drying out orange segments, and dollar store olives, or throwing a can of tomatoes on a skillet with some olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and high-quality black olives and tossing the resulting sauce with hearty and stomach-sating spaghetti....

...I'd rather be an Italian hooker.

So on that tactful and international note, why don't we head north a bit and grab a little influence on our way to the Red Light District of New Orleans?

Through the only moderately subtle influence of PIFA, I've become a little francophilic these past couple of weeks.  The theme for PIFA, in case the huge Eiffel Tower in the middle of the Kimmel Center's plaza didn't give it away, is France (Paris) in the first few decades of the last century.  I'm not normally a big fan of France, but there is something undeniably romantic about Paris, enough that even my anti-France husband thinks I should go to Paris because it's enchanting.

Obviously, with its French Quarter, NOLA owes quite a bit of its cultural, linguistic, and culinary history to France and continues to capitalize on the vague resemblance.  The Poor-Man's Paris?  Anyway, with the near-constant reminder of all things French due to my mild obsession with PIFA, I thought it would be fun to revive a dish I haven't made in a while: Vegetable Etouffee, also from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals.

Someday, I'm going to have to find/order some authentic Louisiana Pecan rice to serve with this.  The brown rice was fine, but probably not as uniquely flavored as my brain lets me believe the recommended rice is.  This is the first time that I made this without toasting the flour first and honestly, I can't say it suffered much.  The whole thing probably could have simmered about 5 minutes more, but as long as its actual flavor is cloaked, the soft, subtle crunch of the zucchini was kind of fun and stands out against the creaminess of the kidney beans.

The sauce could be a little more flavorful.  The rebel in me wants to mix in some bourbon next time to see what happens.  The Yankee in me is poking me in the brain right now to remind me that I don't like bourbon.

lightning strikes twice

How much of a let-down do you suppose it was for Cinderella to go back to her drab work-clothes and mundane life after the night at the ball?  Never really thought of it, did you?  We just assume she "knew her place" and when the ball ended, she resumed her day-to-day Normal without a second thought.

I don't think that's how it happened.

Imagine, if you will, a grand ballroom, with a glass ceiling 150 feet high.  Wide Grand stairways flank the North and South sides of an expansive plaza, leading to groups of tables for dining and enchanting fellow guests.  The tables are decked elaborately in shades of fuchsia and tangerine with small iridescent beads on the tassles of seat cushions, an array of gilded wine glasses and fine white china surrounding a centerpiece of well over a dozen similarly colored roses.  In fact, there are so many guests at the ball that seating goes up two more levels from the grand ballroom floor, on wide balconies overlooking the center of a near-celestial space.  Only slightly offset from the middle of all this is an 80-foot tall light sculpture, which "dances" to the rhythm of music pumped through the hall by invisible musicians.

Look around; everywhere you look are men in stiff black suits and impossibly white shirts.  On their arms, a variety of ladies both elegant and homely.  You can hear the rustle of satin and taffeta as they move, although some make no sound at all but move ethereally through the room with flowing chiffon and silk on feet that barely touch the floor.  A jewelry box of colored cloth, here and there the glint of a diamond that caught the last rays of sunlight, and the heady scent of a perfume jungle envelope your senses and transport you to a nearly magical place where you feel time almost stops existing.

Where is this magical place?  Broad and Spruce.  The Kimmel Center.

Last night was the opening night Gala for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA), held at the Kimmel Center.  As I mentioned a short bit ago, I was blessed to be chosen for the opportunity to help out with this event, thereby scoring free admission to an event other people were paying $750 to attend (and that's before the fancy dress, shoes, and tux).

In addition to the lovely (huge) flower arrangements all over the place (I wouldn't have thought to combine peachy-pink roses with canary forsythia, but I guess that's why I'm not a floral designer), there was a troup of performance artists to greet gala-goers as they entered Commonwealth Plaza, which has been "redecorated" with a Parisian theme.  There was a mime and a 7 foot tall juggler as well as two performers on stilts (the juggling dude was not on stilts), but my favorite was a flower.

It looks a little creepy and a little fruity all rolled up into one chartreuse bodysuit, but this was really something to behold.  The artist was dressed in a total bodysuit - even his face was covered - and then wrapped in this blue flower-body.  He moved very slowly and with surreal balance as he repeatedly "bloomed" and then withdrew.

There were 800 attendees at the gala and some of the dresses were just fabulous - I saw one young lady in a form-fitting gold satin mermaid gown.  She looked stunning.  One of the organizers of the gala was enchanting in a floor-length, off-the-shoulder, princess-cut lavender gown.  There were plenty of gorgeous jewel tones in silk dupioni and chiffon charmeuse - crimson with shades of black, emerald green and sapphire blue, with the occasional pleated silver or shimmery beige satin making an appearance.

One woman's dress stood out above the rest, though.  I could tell this was a woman of great wealth.  Clearly, she was the kind of woman who could go into a taylor and pick out her favorite fabric with precise instructions as to the design of her dress and that is what she would leave with.  No one would argue with her.

Even if they really should have told her that was tapestry material, intended by its manufacturer for thick drapes, rather than floor-length mandarin-inspired ball gowns.

Anyway, after we (the volunteers) got everyone signed in and gave them their golden tickets, handed over with a charming and sparkling smile each and every time, it was time to herd everyone into the main theatre for a performance of Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat by the Philadelphia Orchestra.  I was thrilled to find myself seated in the fourth row of the first Tier - completely unobstructed view of the stage from one of the three center sections.  I have always preferred to see the orchestra from the balcony/first tier because when you're on the stage level you can only see the front of the orchestra - the first violins, the cellos, and the conductor.  From the upper levels, you can look over the whole group - I love watching the timpanist.

At the conclusion of the Orchestra's performance, everyone squeezed back out into the lobby area for a short intermission.  The Plaza was kept relatively low-lit, but the 80-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower was faintly glowing, a promise of what would be a spectacular light show just before dinner.

Me (Right) with the other volunteers from my company

That picture was taken by the CEO's assistant - the CEO and several other execs were actually there as guests (since our company is one of the sponsors, after all).  Directly after the picture was taken, the CFO approached our merry little group, but then spoke directly to me, wondering if I had seen my friend who was also in attendance with her family.  Turned out the CFO and a VP (and his beautiful blond wife) were in the box right next to where my friend and her family were seated.  We were mutually acquainted through this family, but what happened next floored me.

"I have an extra ticket if you'd like to join us in the box."

Excuse me?

Talk about being in the right place at the right time...  I smiled and left my three colleagues standing there catching flies as I accompanied the CFO back to the box and greeted my friend.  The seats were incredible - I couldn't have been closer to the stage if I was sitting on it.  I was so close that I was making eye contact with the dancers.

The Pennsylvania Ballet, accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra and three soloists (tenor, bass, and mezzo-soprano), put on a stunning performance of Stravinsky's Pulcinella.  I could see every muscle move as these strong, powerful bodies floated and flew across the stage.  I have long admired the strength of ballet dancers and you can really see it when you're that close - I could barely breathe.  A long time ago, in another lifetime, I went to the ballet almost every other month.  Our seats were in the middle of the parquet, which is the floor level.  I prefer to see the dancers that close or closer so I can fully appreciate the work they have put into their movement.  I never dreamed I would see the ballet quite that close, though.

I fear I may be spoiled now and this is an expensive vice.

After the performance, I headed back out to help steer gala-goers toward their elegantly appointed tables for their Wolfgang Puck-created dinner.  Once everyone had taken their seats, Mayor Michael Nutter took the stage and flipped a giant switch to activate the Eiffel Tower, which sprung to life as music played throughout the plaza.  Please pardon the fuzziness - the lights were "moving."

After dinner, and just before dessert, there was a performance by Grounded Aerial, a New York-based acrobatic troup.  As gala-goers looked on from their seats on the plaza level and first two tiers, these artists rappelled down the side of the theatre in which we had just seen the orchestra and ballet moments before.  They performed some kind of aerial pantomime as they repeated scaled the wall (four stories high) and "fell" back down again. 

It was kind of thrilling for the first minute or two, but after that, I have to admit, they were just rappelling.

Once their show had finished, the grand presentation of dessert occurred.  In orientation, we had been promised something quite grand, but no hints were given, just a little tease.  Warning: this picture sucks, but maybe if you click on it to blow it up full-sized, you'll be able to make it out.

Two-tiered silver dessert trays were adorned with colorful macaroons and chocolate decadence and delivered to each table in a "hot air balloon."  It was really a sight to behold.  Unfortunately, my flash appears to actually make things darker when I use it.  Even more unfortunately, my camera battery died immediately after I snapped this picture.  So, like I said, click on it to maximize and then squint.

It was an incredible experience that I hope to repeat in the future...as a guest.  Since I just got my "merit" increase at work, I figured out that if I save the $30 more per paycheck that I am now getting, I should be able to afford one ticket for next year's gala.

Speaking of work....I know I have them to thank for this opportunity, but it was SO HARD to go in today.  After an enchanted evening of jewel tones and gilded glassware, skilled artists and ethereal dancers, not to mention a new chunk of bling with which I decorated my wrist, today was just gray and mundane.  Such a disappointment.  I just want to live in PIFA - I'll be a PIFA Princess!

So yeah, I don't think Cinderella felt quite the same about her rags and broom the day after the ball... I'm pretty sure she breathed a huge sigh of relief when Prince Charming came to rescue her from her pail and mop.