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.

fake it 'til you make it

Through some incredible stroke of luck, I finally managed to find myself in the right place at the right time.  Just so you know, that person is never me.  I'm the one holding the lotto ticket that is just one digit off from winning.  I'm the one who gets to the party after everyone is drunk.  I'm the one who walks out of my front gate just in time to see the bus fly by.

This time, though, I had something on my side.  It's fairly well-known at work that I couldn't possibly care less about sports unless someone paid me to care less.  Instead, I enjoy "the finer things," and long for a subscription to the Orchestra or the Ballet.  It just so happens that the CEO of our company is on the Board at the Kimmel Center, a huge performing arts venue in Philadelphia.  It just so happens that the Kimmel Center is hosting the amazing opening night gala for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA).  It just so happens they needed some volunteers and it turned into a great opportunity for the CEO to send some over...which turned into a great opportunity (read: chance of a lifetime) for me to attend a black tie gala people are paying $750 to attend, completely free, aside from my obligations to help herd people.

While wearing an evening gown.
While seeing a joint performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the best in the world, with the Pennsylvania Ballet, for the first time in the history of the venue.  (as a side note, I've been fortunate to work for both organizations.)
While eating a dinner catered by Wolfgang Puck in honor of Georges Perrier (of Le Bec-Fin fame).

I live for this stuff.  So, when people say to me, "Oh, you got volunteered, eh?" I just smile.

Today I got to leave work early because I had to attend volunteer orientation.  According to the fine folks at the Kimmel Center, ordinarily they just do a quick briefing a half hour before an event, but since this is kind of a big deal (800 confirmed attendees, plus people who are only attending the concert, plus cocktail hour under an 80-foot tall replica of the Eiffel Tower strung with lights) they wanted to be a little more organized.  They had a pretty little spread of stinky French cheeses (Paris is the theme) with strawberries and grapes, alongside bottles of Perrier.  I could get used to this.  They also gave us "party favors"

Chocolate Eiffel Tower on a stick.  Yes.

In addition to this incredible privilege, I also got to leave work after only a half day in order to ensure I had plenty of time to get to the Kimmel Center.  The venue is conveniently located about 11 blocks from my home, so another great thing about today (and next week, when the actual event occurs) is that I got home early since I had a noticeably shorter commute.

Obviously, I took advantage of this opportunity to cook something time-consuming and intricate for dinner, instead of heating up the leftovers dominating our refrigerator.

No.  Actually, I took the opportunity to "enhance" our leftovers of Sicilian Market Pasta with an incredible find from Superfresh.  In a perfectly ironic move, Superfresh has packaged up produce they deem to be defective in some manner - rotting, or otherwise past its prime - and sell it for a dollar.  If a person was in need of tomatoes so ripe they were about to rot and needed a layer of plastic wrap to keep the flies away, this would be a tremendous bargain.

What luck!  I needed perfectly ripe tomatoes tonight!  So for one measly dollar, I brought home 6 perfect-for-sauce vine-ripened tomatoes and turned them into a very flavorful sauce with the help of some olive oil and my magic Tuscan Seasoning from California.  While I had only planned to get the tomatoes, I ended up with what looks like a perfectly fine bundle of tiny potatoes, perfect for roasting, also $1 and two heads of not-brown-yet iceberg lettuce for another $1.  Let's total that up:  6 tomatoes, about a dozen potatoes, and two heads of lettuce for....drum roll, please....$3.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.