It's Always Yummy in Philadelphia

I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but we ate a lot of food in Philly. No, really - a lot. And it was all incredibly tasty.

I spent nearly a week researching restaurants in Philly (I take my food seriously!) and got great recommendations from colleagues and friends (thanks, guys!). What a challenge - so many places to eat and so little time! I finally narrowed it down to a few choices for brunch and dinner and we left the rest up to where our stomaches led us.

The highlights:

- the 100% vegan restaurant Vedge, which takes veggies to another level. Trust me, you will want to finish your vegetables. Plus, the atmosphere is upscale but comforting, kind of like dining in someone's really nice house.

- waiting an hour for a table at Tria to discover that it was completely worth the wait and more. Devoted to delicious beer, wine and cheese, this cafe covers basically the trifecta of any great diet, in my opinion.

- goat cheese, sundried tomato and pistachio guacamole at El Vez, with a salty Pink Cadillac margarita made the perfect Sunday morning brunch - part 1.

- washing down thick, golden brown slices of chocolate stuffed french toast with piping hot coffee while observing the Sunday morning scene unfold upon Rittenhouse Square, for Sunday morning brunch - part 2.

- the creamiest, lick-your-plate sheep's milk ricotta drizzled with balsamic, on a crusty piece of grilled bread as the start to an incredible dinner at Barbuzzo. We were so full we couldn't even fit in dessert - that night. We ordered their salted caramel budino to go and savoured it the next day (with spoon, below). This dessert has attained a cult-like following and I am now a believer.

- tapping our toes to a live band playing old school tunes and sipping on deftly mixed cocktails at the lively, atmospheric Farmers' Cabinet.

As you can see, I wasn't joking - these are only the highlights! We hopped into the car Monday morning and I didn't even think once about snacks for the return drive home. Oh yeah, except for those chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels...and those peanut butter malt balls...

Stay hungry my friends and if you're a foodie like me, get yourself to Philly!

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The last time I was in Philadelphia, I was about ten years old and according to my parents' memory, needed a decent nap before I could enjoy any place they brought me. That hasn't really changed much in fifteen years, but I will say that I can't believe it's taken me so long to get back to Philly! 

I had completely forgotten the city's charming narrow streets and friendly locals. Plus, it's an absolute treat for photographers (and foodies! more to come on that soon...)!

We were treated wonderfully by the Hotel Palomar (I scored a deal via Jetsetter). They even had a free wine and popcorn hour every day, which is hard to argue with even when you are heading out for dinner. 

Finally... some pictures from our President's Day weekend in the City of Brotherly Love! 

Le Sigh...

... it's always so difficult to return after a long weekend and resume your everyday routine. Pem and I had the most amazing three days in Philly (mostly spent eating, naturally!) and I can't wait to share pictures soon. Here's to a great (and shorter) week!

Love's Labour's Found

To wrap up this lovely week, I wanted to (finally!) share some photos of my friend's wedding from November. The wedding festivities took place in Mt. Lavinia, Sri Lanka and involved two wedding ceremonies and four nights full of laughter, love and lots of dancing! Dhiraj and Ansu - I loved being there to witness you two tie the knot and I had such a blast. Can we do it again next year?

(sidenote: Pem and I are off to Philly for President's Day weekend! Hope you enjoy the three-day weekend!)

The Key to Anyone's Heart...

To lighten things up around here, I thought I'd share a recipe. Celebrating February 14th usually involves lots of indulgences - chocolates, champagne, a nice dinner. This Nutella swirl pound cake recipe is just as decadent but comes from humble beginnings. Aside from the usual pantry staples, the only game changing ingredient is one full jar of Nutella. 

I like to use less Nutella than the recipe calls for. A full jar tends to overwhelm the pound cake and sometimes get burned on the bottom. I also like to swirl a bit of Nutella on the top layer to make it more interesting (see above). I made this yesterday for the second time, so I can guarantee it will help you keep that warm, fuzzy feeling even after Valentine's Day is over. 

(p.s. - I added an extra stick of butter by "accident", but the results were incredible! Despite what the recipe says, definitely do not wait two hours for it to cool. You want the cake to be warm and the Nutella to be gooey. This goes incredibly well with morning coffee.)

First Comes Love, Then Comes...? - Part 2

“A wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life. 

You have been dead until now. 

Were you aware of that? You’re dead…right now.” 

– wedding planner Marion, Bride Wars

To continue my musings on love and marriage in the wake of attending the "All the Single Ladies" panel discussion with Kate Bolick, I wanted to write about a topic briefly touched upon by the panel - the fantasy of the wedding day vis-à-vis the reality of marriage.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I love perusing wedding photography blogs – the amount of time and thought that goes into pulling off such an elaborate event blows my detail-oriented, DIY-loving mind. The floral arrangements! The cutesy seating chart! The wedding favors that symbolize the newlyweds’ love and are conveniently sized for easy packing! So many elements in a wedding are meant to serve as representations of the couple – who they are and what their story is. It is meant to be the perfect “first day of the rest of [their] lives.” 

Beginning at a young age, women are repeatedly told through various channels that their wedding day is supposed to be the best day of their lives. Not only will you be marrying your Prince Charming, but you get to be a princess for the day. This is the day to be pampered like a princess and look like a princess – it’s your time to wear a gorgeous, expensive dress that you’ll never wear again (even if you get married again – that’s bad juju). A few brides will take it upon themselves to even act like a royal pain in the ass to have the wedding they’ve always dreamed of.

Don’t get me wrong – I think weddings are a beautiful opportunity to witness and celebrate a couple’s promise of love and commitment to each other. All the weddings I’ve attended have been wonderfully joyous events and the couples, the brides in particular, were nothing short of glowing. But the fairy tales, the movies, the magazines, the websites, they all build up the event to be the festive gateway to your “happily ever after.” They detract from the reality that remaining happily coupled is usually the result of hard work and making sacrifices.

In actuality, this fact is alluded to during many wedding ceremonies and some officiators even call on attendees to vow to support the flourishing of the couple's marriage. But circumstances change. People change. You can count on that on your wedding day, but you can't count on how they'll change.

If anyone would know, it’d be these couples captured by photographer Laura Fleishman (her photo, above). All have been married for over 50 years and share words of wisdom about what comes after the wedding day.

First Comes Love, Then Comes...? - Part 1

Last Thursday, some friends and I attended a discussion at the 6th and I synagogue featuring Kate Bolick, author of the provocative Atlantic article, “All the Single Ladies.” Whether you’re single or not, I recommend the read. Bolick touches upon interesting trends in our society and asks some important questions about the role and meaning of marriage today.

The panel discussion covered a range of issues related to singledom and declining marriage rates, from the socioeconomic factors that have shifted the place of marriage in our society to the rise of the hookup culture to the growing gaggle of TV shows that reflect the lives of the urban young and restless (including a new show Bolick's piece inspired) . Like Bolick’s article, the discussion gave rise to many more questions than answers for me. Doing a bit of my own research on the various reactions to Bolick’s piece (from the single sisterhood as well as from the Christian conservative), I concluded that every response to her piece is colored by the writer’s own attitudes, experiences and neuroses regarding romantic love and relationships. This post doesn’t promise to be any different.

And with that, onto some of my biggest takeaways and questions from the article/discussion:

How are we defining our options? To kick off the discussion, the moderator asked, by show of hands, how many in the audience were single. She defined single as “not being married.” This broad definition of being single surprised me, especially since this talk concerned the waning desire to follow the traditional romantic trajectory that concludes in marriage (probably because most in our society actually conclude in divorce). To me, being single means being uncommitted to a particular person, not not married.

Although there are declining numbers of couples taking matrimonial vows today, I still think domestic partnership between two people (as opposed to communes or other alternative living arrangements, as Bolick alludes to) will remain the aspiration of expressing romantic love for quite some time. So if we’re talking about women deciding against marriage, why not broaden the scope to include women in loving, fulfilling but unmarried relationships too? This undoubtedly complicates the discussion about the decline of traditional marriage, no longer answerable by indicating the lack of “marriage-able” men in the dating pool. At one point, Bolick admits that if Mr. Right came along, she would get married - meaning marriage remains the ultimate expression of a couple’s commitment and love for one another.

Even the terms available to describe your significant other are limited. “Girl/Boyfriend” becomes slightly juvenile once you reach your late twenties/early thirties and have been in a loving, committed relationship with someone for many years. Though the terms “husband” and “wife” are being used in gay and lesbian marriages, the term “partner” still mainly carries the connotation of a same-sex relationship. My friend Pete (who introduced me to Bolick’s article) suggested the term “lover”, which to me sounds wonderfully sexy but implies more of a physical connection than an emotional one. I’d read once of a woman who used the term “fiancé” for her significant other, though they weren’t actually engaged to be married. But my friend Alex pointed out that using that term is likely to engender questions about when the Big Day is. So that’s awkward. I have another friend who uses the term “wife”, even though they aren’t actually married. Also slightly awkward. And “significant other” or “my better half” are just plain wordy to use all the time.

So I’m wondering, when is our vocabulary going to catch up to the reality that other meaningful options exist between being married or unmarried?

To be continued tomorrow in Part 2...

Let's Talk about Love

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return" 

- "Nature Boy" sung by Nat King Cole

With Valentine's Day approaching, I thought I'd explore some thoughts I have about relationships and love. Full disclosure: I don't buy into nor take pleasure in the trappings of the commercial Valentine's Day (chocolates excluded) but I will take it as an occasion to reflect upon my own feelings and approach towards love and loving relationships in my life and in our society.

Hopefully you'll find the upcoming posts stimulating (whether you have/want a Valentine or not!) and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Visual Storytelling from Africa

My friend Steph has been encouraging me to check out Hornlight, a relatively new site that serves as "a platform to share diverse, complex and nuanced narratives on the Horn of Africa". I finally did and was blown away. Hornlight exhibits the range and the depth of stories from the communities of the Horn of Africa, which fail to be represented accurately in mainstream media.

Especially of interest to me was a series discussing how photographic images (particularly in the news) can continue a harmful, shallow narrative about the most pressing issues in the region, such as famine. We know that spending more time with a subject allows a more complex visual story to be told but so often the 24-hour news cycle demands quantity over quality. Feed your brain with something more nourishing. I recommend starting here.


Life Without Lights from Peter DiCampo on Vimeo.

(not from Hornlight nor the region, but an interesting and well-done short video on "Life Without Lights" in Ghana...)