the greatest of these is love

Pardon me.  Have you seen the movie "Crash"?  Very much the way it starts by flashing around to seemingly unrelated stories, I am going to start with two apparently independent vignettes.  Just like the movie, it will all come together in the end.

*~*~*~*~*

A little while back, Christians worldwide celebrated their holiest holiday, the one that gives irrevocable substance to their beliefs - Easter and the holy days preceding it.  Long story short, the man bold enough to call himself the son of God breaks bread with his friends and then tells them that the next time he will eat with them will be "on the flip side."  After a night of ardent prayer in a garden in Jerusalem, one of his "friends" leads those who would arrest him to Jesus, beginning the end, so to speak.  The next 24 hours will find this supposed Messiah tried, beaten, and hung on a cross, crucified until dead.  The miracle, though, upon which Christians base their faith and find their salvation, is that after resting in a tomb from a Friday afternoon until a Sunday morning, Jesus rose, bringing veracity to all his claims and reconciling a broken relationship between humanity and a pure deity.

I have no idea who named all the holy days, but as Easter approached this year, my cousin's wife inquired if anyone knew what the word Maundy meant (as in Maundy Thursday, the night that Christians remember The Last Supper and take part in a sacrament begun on that night 2000ish years ago).  I'll admit, I referred to the expertise of the internet to help me answer her, but upon finding this article, I remembered things I learned in seminary.  "Maundy" is taken from "Mandate."  Let me explain further:

After humbling himself and washing his friends' feet in a symbolic act of what he was about to accomplish on a far larger and bloodier scale, and after instituting the sacrament of Communion by offering his friends his body/bread and blood/wine and asking them to remember him when they dined together, Jesus gave them one last mandate.  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (Gospel of John, 13:34-35 ESV)

*~*~*~*~*

Do you know who Beth Hart is?

I've mentioned her before, but lately she's been taking up a lot of space in my brain and in my heart.  I believe I have come to decide that she is truly the greatest performer of my time for what she does.  There are two reasons for this:

1. She seems to have perfect pitch - she never misses a note!
2. She is so completely honest and raw... she pours every part of her heart into her music.  I saw an interview with her when she said that she wrote when she was sad and toured when she was not, more or less.

Having lost myself in hours of YouTube videos over the last several weeks, I've seen her live performances from all over the world, in all kinds of venues from stadiums to dive bars, and multiple versions of her more popular songs.  She is a consummate performer - she enjoys every moment of what she does (even in a bittersweet, maudlin kind of way) and recognizes at every opportunity how lucky she is that she gets to sing her heart for a living.  She is so real.

She is a storyteller and I love that.  Through her songs and the tales she uses to introduce them, I learn more about her and her life and her inspirations.  She has written the most sincere love song I've ever heard and the most painful plea for love, too.

Beth did not have the fame she deserved in the USA, so she does most of her touring overseas, throughout Europe.  She very clearly feeds off of the energy of her crowd, so she interacts with them frequently throughout the concert.  She loves it when her crowd sings along, they obviously love when she talks to them, and there is always this intense intimacy between her and those in attendance at her shows.  I hope to be so lucky one day.  

As I've been vicariously participating (via YouTube), I noticed a trend in her closing song.  It is not normally the same song, though they are almost always incredibly personal and sometimes heart-wrenchingly painful songs.  One can almost imagine Beth's fans leaving the concert in a contemplative way not unlike the worshippers at a Maundy Thursday service.    

After concluding her Wroclaw (Poland) concert with the song that made her [at least somewhat] famous, she sincerely thanks her fans for being "so nice to me."

Maybe I was in a particularly melancholy mood while watching this one night, but I thought to myself, "what kind of pain makes a person thank total strangers for being nice to her?"  It was enough to push tears into my eyes, thinking of all I knew she had been through from reading up on her and watching interviews with her.  Divorced parents, possible abuse, a heroin user by age 15, when she was 22ish her old sister, who she holds in high regard, died from AIDS, which she caught from a dirty needle.  It took Beth years to care enough about herself to clean up (and the love of a good man).  Her self-esteem is still just awful and my heart aches for her.

In her adult years, she reconciled the broken relationship she had with her father, who left when she was still young.  When she wrote one of her more recent albums, 37 Days, she asked him what his favorite song was.  He told her he didn't know why, but it was this one:

She told him she knew why - Because he is an addict, just like her.  Clean or not, it is a continuing struggle, laid bare in this song.  "God knows I can't change me; I've tried and tried... it's been a long time at the bottom.  Spent a lot of time way down there.  It's been a long time at the bottom - I don't know how I made it here."

*~*~*~*~*

So how do the two parts of this post "crash"?  Really, it's quite simple.

You don't know what another person is going through or has lived through.  You don't know their joys or the pain they carry unspoken.

Be kind.  Love one another.

music in my kitchen

Do you ever have those moments, normally in the midst of some utterly mundane activity, when all of a sudden you are completely at peace?

I may be sending women back a few decades when I share this, but for me, those moments most commonly occur for me when I'm in my kitchen.  Tonight's Introspective Mundane Activity involved peeling the safety seal off of a new bottle of Hunt's ketchup.  There was really no good reason, which is what made it such a delightfully calming moment - opening a new bottle of ketchup has absolutely no symbolic significance (unless you really want to dig, Dr. Freud) and I would hardly consider it a life-changing experience.  Yet, as I was prying up the edges of the seal and pulling it carefully back from the bottle, I just had this moment where all was right in my world and I could honestly say that I am happy with where my life has brought me.

I generally try to stay away from existential dilemmas and my life-long angst around them (Sword of Damocles and all that) on the blog because I like to keep things generally light-hearted (so that when I occasionally go on a babbling streak about something I care about passionately, there's a better chance people will listen). To tell the truth, though, I have not been very happy with my life over the last year.  I think that is one of the reasons this is only my sixth post in 2012.

Other reasons include my wacktastic work schedule lately.  It's about to either settle down or get a lot crazier, but I'm excited about some changes taking place and looking forward to the new adventures I'll have as I learn my new position and work my way up this new "corporate ladder."  Nevertheless, in the past few months, I've needed to work later than I'd prefer some nights, resulting in a dinner schedule that is erratic at best.  Since I've stuck primarily to familiar recipes, dining out a little more frequently, and more dinners involving prepared foods, I haven't felt inclined to share, especially in the face of the writer's block that apparently also struck me mid-January.

Fortunately, it appears my recent obsession with current events and political hot topics, leading to last night's post (which went a bit further from the point I was trying to make than I'd prefer), has broken my inadvertent silence.  I might even start taking pictures of food again!

Let's not go overboard, folks.  Tonight's dinner was veggie burgers and fries.  But first, a word from our sponsor: Fantasies for a Future Kitchen....


{cue shimmery deedly-deedly music and wiggling fingers}

I have this vision in my mind.  Actually, it's kind of like a collage of many visions which all combine to create My Perfect Kitchen.  It's spacious, of course, but efficiently designed so that all the things I need are near me.  It's big enough for a small breakfast table, probably, and a baker's rack.  Not only is there enough space for all my stuff, but there is space left over for more!  So now I can fit in a stand mixer and... my Bose SoundDock, so I can charge my ancient iPod while listening to its eclectic mix of music out loud while I cook, rather than through my earbuds with the iPod unceremoniously tucked into my apron pocket.  Maybe I can even sing along without Mister thinking I've lost my marbles.

{shimmery music fades, returning us to my small but happy and efficient urban kitchen}


There was music in my kitchen tonight, though, despite my iPod being plugged into my computer to charge while I labored over frozen fries and frozen Boca patties (we're all about the brand placement tonight, folks!).  Actually, while we're on the subject, I would like to put in a little plug for Ore-Ida.  Ordinarily, I buy the store-brand fries (as well as just about anything else), but there was a sale on Ore-Ida, so I picked up a package of "Extra Crispy" fries.  They really are!  Seriously - crispiest, tastiest fries I've ever cooked in my own kitchen.

But wait - there's more!  They sing!


Yes, really.  They sing.  Or whistle, or scream bloody murder.  Whatever.  At one point, they kind of sounded like bagpipes and for some reason, I found that so amusing I thought I actually might like to listen to bagpipes (ssshhhh! don't tell the "Irish" bar across the street!).  Seriously, I noticed a kind of sizzling noise when I stirred them halfway through cooking, but when I pulled them out of the oven, they were making a whole heck of a lot of noise.  It wasn't unpleasant, though, it really sounded like they were singing for me.

I truly never thought I could write a fun post about veggie burgers and fries for dinner, but I also never knew fries would sing for me.

whataya want from me?

If I could start from a decidedly non-culinary direction, I don't think I've made any secret of my love of two female vocalists.

Amy Lee of Evanescence

the incomparable P!nk

I realized something sometime in the last 48ish hours - I love them completely, equally, and for totally disparate reasons.  They each represent something I love or want to love about myself - a glorified, famous part of me.  I love Amy Lee for the ethereal beauty that she is - she looks a lot like me :) and we are both classically trained musicians.  She is rumored to be a domineering perfectionist... no comment.  P!nk, on the other hand, is the badass I want to be.  I love how raw she is and how passionately she makes each poignant point, yet with enough fire that she doesn't normally allow for the same otherworldly wallowing I find so comforting in Evanescence's music.

It all made a lot more sense in my head, so let me wrap all that up by saying that Amy Lee speaks to the part of me that is aloof, mysterious, and all too in touch with the heartbreak of this world while P!nk pulls me up by my bootstraps, kicks me in the butt and reminds me that we can take this on, as long as it's worth fighting for.

Believe it or not, this really is leading up to dinner (kind of).

Tonight I made Rice Island Casserole from Vegan on the Cheap.  

This is definitely not the first time I've made this, but sometimes, I spread my repeats so far apart that Mister forgets we've had something before.  Also, I think he somewhat depends on me taking so darn long to remake a recipe so that he doesn't have to tell me when he doesn't like dinner.

Don't get me wrong - he went back for seconds.  It might have been the second bowl that reminded him this wasn't his "favorite dinner," which is his cute little euphemistic way of saying, "I'd rather you didn't make this again."  It's also possible that he ruined his own second bowl by thinking hot sauce would be a good addition.  Either way, he got halfway through his second bowl before giving up.

I can probably take a lesson from a Sweet-n-Sour dish I made a few months ago which he helped me choose and then forgot when I served it, making a comment that he would never eat something sweet-n-sour "on purpose."  I might have even caught on by his almost violent reaction to my suggestion that I might make pineapple cupcakes for his birthday and some derogatory comment about pineapple.  I didn't, though, or I ignored it because sometimes, dinner is about what I want to eat.

In case you didn't know, P!nk actually wrote Adam Lambert's hit single "Whataya Want From Me?" and this is an incredible mash-up of the two of them singing it.  It just seemed an appropriate song considering our dinner adventures...

day dates and lazy nights

Since I'm such a sweetheart (except when I eat Mister's soup), I woke up on the first day of my serendipitous three day weekend this morning.  As usually happens on days I can sleep in a bit, I woke up an hour before I needed to in a complete panic that I was going to be late if I didn't get up right now.  Fortunately, I remembered quickly that I was off today and didn't have anywhere to be until I went to see the magnificent and persevering Philadelphia Orchestra play the first concert in their opening series.

Please forgive the blurry picture, but you can see the important bits.  The pouty young man in the lower right corner is Julian Rachlin, the violin soloist for today's (and tomorrow's and Sunday's) performance.  He is quite a performer!  He is actually only a few years older than Mister and I and I laughed a little to myself when he took the stage - I had no idea they could make nice expensive suits to imitate the growing (and somewhat disturbing) trend of skinny jeans on boys.  I discussed this with a colleague 12 years my junior - she sees no problem with boys wearing girlpants.  Call me old-fashioned, but men's and women's pants are designed differently because, frankly, men and women have different spacial needs in certain areas....

Anyway, back to the performance.  Julian was totally a rockstar - he was a pleasure to watch as he nearly danced along with the more lively parts of the music he played and had some of the most charmingly pretentious facial expressions and theatrical, dance-like movements while he was waiting for the orchestra to let him play again.

Ordinarily, when I see the orchestra (not that it's a common occurrence, though I'm trying to weasel my way into the Lang Lang concert next Saturday, what would have been Franz Lizst's 200th birthday), I prefer to sit in the balcony so I can see all of the instrumentalists, not just the ones closest to the stage front.  The seats Mister and I occupied today were the closest I have ever sat to the Orchestra and it was amazing to be able to see the faces of the performers.  In a time when the arts in Philadelphia are encumbered at best and more realistically, endangered, and in the first few days of a new contract negotiation for the players which results in "downsizing" their salaries and benefits (the Orchestra declared bankruptcy earlier in the year and is trying to keep one of the world's best orchestras afloat), it was heart-warming to see how genuinely they enjoy playing their instruments.

For any arts lovers out there, here is the concert I had the privilege of seeing this afternoon:
Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Opus 25 ("Classical)
Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D minor, Opus 47 which was magnificent
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Opus 92 (which was featured in the movie Mr. Holland's Opus if anyone is familiar)

I loved every minute, but classical music is not really Mister's thing.  To reward him for accompanying me, we visited a new restaurant for a late lunch (resulting in no fun dinner stories, unless you want to hear about the PB&J I'm about to eat).  Zavino is a pizza and wine bar, part of the 13th Street Renaissance owed to a pair of visionary female entrepreneurs.  Despite the threatening sky, we elected to sit outside.  There was an awning to protect us when it did start to pour but we felt badly for the waitresses who brought our food (shielded by a tray over top).  We started with a tray of marinated olives and an apple and candied walnut salad, then each of us got our own pizza.  They had a Garden Pizza on the menu and when the waitress told me what was on it, there was no question what I would order: house-made marinara (spectacular) with large, thin slices of garlic, sauteed spinach and thin spirals of fennel.  It was amazing.  Even better, my evil plan worked - it started raining once we were seated and stopped when we paid the bill, allowing us to stroll home without getting wet.  Timing is everything folks.

Speaking of timing, this seems a good time to share the new menu!

1. Monk Bowl from The 30 Minute Vegan because it's been a really, really long time since I've cooked from this book and I missed a couple of the recipes.  Those follow:

2. Pasta Florentine, which, to be honest, was the whole reason I was looking through the book to begin with.

3. Put the Tex in Your Mex Chili.  I'll be honest (again).  I hate the name of this meal, as well as a lot of others in the book.  There is no need to be this cheesy - it's a vegan cookbook!  :)

4. Homey Vegetable Stew with Dumplings requires a little extra effort but is so worth it.

5. Farfalle with White Beans and Cabbage from Vegan on the Cheap.  It's a 7-meal menu and the week before payday, so I figured I should probably complete the menu with some favorites from this book.

6. Mexican Rice and Bean Bake


7. Better-Than-Takeout Tofu Stir-fry

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!

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.

memories come in different flavors

Do you remember buttermints?  I do.  I remember going to the Candlelight Diner with my mother, sister, and grandmother.  I couldn't possibly tell you what I ate there, but I remember two things distinctly.  Each table had its very own individual juke box that played a variety of songs.  The only one my sister and I played, over and over, was the theme for The Greatest American Hero.  By the way, William Katt is actually a fantastic actor and did a terrific job in one of my favorite musicals, Pippin.

Anyway, the other thing I remember is the little glass bowl of pastel-colored buttermints at the cash register.  This was way before people knew about things like germs and how gross it was to touch things other people touched, so it's really a miracle I lived to adulthood considering how much I loved grabbing a handful of those mints.

I'm a fan of dessert before dinner, and even though I ate dinner first, then had a little dessert, I want to tell you about that first, while it's fresh in my mind and relevant to my trip down Memory Lane (but don't worry, folks, we're far from finished that joyride).  When I was stocking our brand new, clean freezer, I wanted to get some Mint Chip Tempt "ice cream."  Unfortunately, Essene didn't feel like stocking it the day I was there, but not to leave empty-handed, I picked up Rice Dream Mint Carob Chip, despite my ambivalence towards carob as a chocolate substitute.

I haven't spent a lot of time with rice milk because I'm perfectly happy with soy, almond, and/or coconut.  However, since I put so much effort into making the Rice Vegan "cheese" slices melt, I figured it couldn't hurt to try the "ice cream" and see how it compared to some of my favorites.

The first taste was a shock - extraordinarily minty, far more than I was expecting.  At first I thought it was disgusting but I wanted to give it a chance.  I realized, mid-mouthful, that it tasted like a frozen version of my beloved buttermints...but without all the artery-clogging butter and germs.  So, that was a happy little surprise (so were the spoon "tracks" that showed Mister tried a little bit, too, while I was at work).

Speaking of segues...I mean, Speaking of Mister....
I woke up at 5:30 AM this morning because a kitty jumped over my head.  In my groggy state of Why-the-H-am-I-Awake, it took me a moment to remember he wasn't supposed to be in the bedroom and that we close the door every night to keep him out.  I turned to see if Mister was going to kill the cat, but Mister was not there...which explained how the kitty got in... Apparently, Mister's good night of sleep two nights ago was kind of like the one time in 2010 that I didn't have trouble cooking brown rice - a fluke.  Last night, his insomnia returned in full force, so sometime in the early morning hours, he got up and decided that it's never too early for metal.

When I finally dragged myself from the bedroom at the late, late hour of 7am, Mister was wide awake and strumming furiously on his little guitar (with headphones on, thank God).

Why don't we head back down Flashback Alley for a quick safety reminder.  Remember when you were a kid, but finally old enough to "help" in the kitchen?  Maybe mom let you use the fancy can opener to open the baked beans or something?  What did she always say? Be careful; the edges are sharp.

 
Looks like someone didn't listen very well.
Or maybe, someone was just a little overzealous about getting the last three artichoke hearts out of the bottom of the can where they had all crammed themselves against each other and wouldn't come out until I bled.  Until "someone" bled, that is.

Regardless of my injury (and you were worried about germs on the buttermints?), our Tuscan Vegetable Ragout was a delightful and filling dinner.  It really makes a huge yield, causing me to ponder whether to replace my saute pan with a 4-qt or if I should just go for the gusto and get a 5-qt...only time and space will tell, I suppose.

I think it gets bigger (and better) every time I make it.  I need to start reining myself in - just because I can add smoked tofu and macaroni to the 14 oz of Killer Artichoke Hearts, 2 zucchini, 14 oz tomatoes, and 28 oz of cannellini beans doesn't mean I should.  Perhaps in the interest of my 3-qt saute pan, I'll learn some restraint before the next time I make this.

 

Or maybe I'll just buy a bigger sauteuse.

After all, it's not like this is the only recipe I run into that trouble with.  I could have made the bulgur pilaf in a saute pan if I thought it would have held the kale.  I had a little trouble combining all the ingredients for our dinner tonight, too: Warm Chickpea Ragout with Swiss Chard, Carrots, and Harissa from Vegetarian Times: Fast & Easy.  In case you were wondering what's in it....

You don't really need me to spell it out for you, do you?  After all, the book pretty much did that in the recipe title.

Despite Harissa repeatedly kicking me in the back of my throat, this really is a wonderfully tasty dinner.  My only grievance was with the tomatoes.  I used a different brand of fire-roasted tomatoes than I usually do and I could really taste the difference - these were acidic, not nearly as sweet as other brands.  The sweetness of the other brands are what allow me to actually eat this dinner, rather than choke and sputter through it as though I had accidentally made Martha's Apple-Chickpea Curry.

Due to time constraints, I substituted bulgur for the rice upon which I usually serve this.  As a result, I may need to pull a creative little switcheroo a little further down the week.  We'll see how that turns out.  Stay tuned - this could get exciting!

somebody loves me

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy not too far from here, (also known as the 1980s) a man named Michael W. Smith was getting some quality airplay on the radio (remember the radio??).  His music colored at least part of my adolescence, alternately preventing me from doing something stupid and causing me to think with a little more depth about where my life would go.  I remember one song that attached itself to my heart in a particularly possessive way:

Somebody love me - come and carry me away
Somebody need me to be the blue in their gray
Somebody want me the way I've always dreamed it could be
Won't somebody love me, love me?

Talk about the heartcry of a teenage girl!  Are the lyrics cheesy?  A vegan wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.  Do they perfectly sum up the lovesong almost every good girl with an eye toward marriage sings in the depths of her heart?  Does a bear....ahem, you get the idea.

Anyway, before I veer too far off course, I just want the world to know that somebody loves me.  My favorite part of every day is coming home from work and seeing my husband and kitty.  On Mondays, this is particularly rewarding since I hate to leave them after a beautiful Sunday spent together.  On this particular Monday, though, coming home was even better than usual due to a surprise I got upon opening the door to our apartment:

What?  Doesn't everyone's sweetheart write love notes with Sharpies on scrap paper and then suspend it at eye level just inside the front door using dental floss and scotch tape?  How adorable is that? 

Or for that matter, how cute are these big, doleful eyes?  Angst is getting so worked up over the move, I feel kind of guilty that I started packing so soon.  I just know how time gets away from me and I didn't want it to be this time next week with nary a book nor trinket packed.  In a few weeks, he'll be fine and have fun exploring his new home, but for now he's quite the sad sack.

Anyway, with Angst keeping a close eye on me from Mister's dining chair, I prepared a dinner he didn't have the remotest interest in begging for: Pasta Jambalaya from Vegan Express.  This recipe is so good and although I really enjoy making it with cavatappi pasta (because cavatappi pasta looks cool), I really think the rotini made for a beautiful photo.

I also used fresh parsley this time, which I don't ordinarily do.  I really hope I'm able to cultivate a little window herb garden in the new place because I truly enjoy cooking with fresh herbs, but they're just so darn expensive.  The parsley isn't terrible and you get a lot for your money, but I don't think I've ever used it all.  With little herb plants growing in my window, I can just take what I need and let the rest continue to grow and thrive until I need more.

On a (pretty much) completely unrelated note, there's been a lot of chatter lately about Whole Foods selling out to Corporate Satan Monsanto by compromising on Genetically Engineered alfalfa.  Due to spending most of my weekday waking hours at work and most of my weekend hours packing, I really haven't had the chance to explore this topic as much as I'd like to, so I would love to get a little feedback from my peanut gallery, if you'd be so kind.

1. What are your thoughts on GMOs, and/or the Whole Foods "situation"?

2. Are you interested in reading my take on GMOs in general, the implications of Whole Foods meeting Monsanto "halfway," and what that means for me and my choices as a consumer who cares about my health and supporting agriculture that shows caring for world health?

call the wind Mariah

Mariah Carey has a magnificent vocal range - 5 octaves, to be exact, which is about twice the range some of the most talented and trained voices out there have. I used to drive my mother (probably my whole family, actually) crazy when I was a young teen and Mariah had just hit the scene. I have every album through Butterfly, when she started getting a little too "hip hop" for my tastes at that time (a world-weary 19-year-old...). Having been trained as a coloratura soprano, I was completely enthralled by her ability to hit higher notes than Sarah Brightman in Phantom of the Opera. I later learned that these notes, seemingly only contained in Mariah's range and no other's, are referred to as the "whistle register." When sung frequently enough, they are enough to stretch my mother's patience and pierce even a dog's ears, but I find them amazing even to this day.

Why all this talk of music on a [primarily] food blog? Because the wind outside my home was doing its best Mariah Carey impression today and now I can more fully appreciate my mother's distress when I would pop in Ms. Carey's tapes[!] and CDs back-to-back on multi-hour road trips.

Of course, all the howling wind and driving rain made for the perfect day to finally make Homey Vegetable Stew with Dumplings. A little heavy on the spelt flour, though it has a very amenable flavor which I could get used to - I'm not sure it needed to serve as both a soup thickening agent and dense dumplings dotting the stew.
I have to say, due to the wetness of the batter that was to become these substantial little dumplings, I did not actually think they would "bake" or whatever cooked them. Imagine my surprise when I took the lid off the pot and saw these fluffy little buggers! I served up two dumplings each with thick, savory stew to Mister and to me, accompanied by a simple but tasty salad of mixed greens, kalamatas, carrots, and dried cranberries.
Exhausted by the effort of not being eaten by the banshees outside the wet windows, there was a little chair dumpling as well: