Flower Power Cheesy Steak

11115 Steps


Ben atop City Hall in the distance. Used to the be you could not building a building above Ben's hat. No longer.

Ron and I took a road trip to Philadelphia today. For this California kid, being in three States in one day is a real head trip. (Drove through New Jersey.) I love Philly and it was great to get out of town. (And go to another one!). Our friend Kara has a line of gardening accessories she is showing at the Flower Show in Philly, the oldest flower show in the country. Again - who knew? If you are in Philly this week or want to know where to find great gardening accessories in your area check out Angela's Garden.

The first stop upon arriving in town was a Weight Watcher's point-busting trip to get a Philly Cheesesteak. We always go to Pat's so we went to Gino's this time. Two famous competing cheesesteak places across the street from each other in South Philly. I will never go to Gino's again since the cheesesteaks were not as good, and it had loads of right-wing, bullsh%t rhetoric such as "Freedom Fries" (STILL with the Freedom Fries?) and stuff about speaking English, etc. Gentle reader, spend your (shrinking) dollar how you'd like and so will I. And I am glad for Gino's grandparent's that they weren't turned away from this place for speaking only Italian.


Awash in Colour!

The flower show was fine. Lots of flowers. And plants. The theme this year is New Orleans Jazz and that made for lots of, well, colour. And beads. And masks. And musical notes. Tasteful is hard to pull off with this kind of thematic stew. Not my cup of tea, and that is why I go to bagpipe conventions. But it was fun to go and support Kara and they did have some cool things.



I thought this sign was rather provocative and intriguing for a flower show and I was impressed until I noticed...







the full picture. "Ho-hum," I thought. It brought to mind Dorothy Parker when asked to use "horticulture" in a sentence and she said, "You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think."


[Okay, here it is: I am so not coupled and in the market to by stuff for a garden I don't own with my partner in the city or upstate and I take my whole lack of THAT out on flower shows. Happy?]


Philly is really a great town. Part of me would want to live there if I could. The townhouses, the neighborhoods, the restaurants are amazing and the place totally works my John Adams fetish. We went to the Rodin Museum and walked around the neighborhoods. It was in one of these Center City neighborhoods we found this gelateria, Capo Giro, which by my estimation means "Head Trip," but don't ask anybody at Gino's, you might seem unpatriotic rather than curious. The gelato was the best I have had in ages. Better than what I previously blogged as being considered the best in New York City. So go to Philly, buy a gardening hat from Kara and get some wildflower honey gelato from Capo Giro.



Burnt sugar/Pistachio -- Wildflower Honey/Cioccoato Scuro

Later we met up with Kara and her boyfriend Vince and went to dinner at this amazing place. For some reason I do not remember the name of it and it was great too. I loved, loved the white anchovy salad and the lamb shank. After we went back to Kara and Vince's very cool 4+ floor townhouse and had a drink before getting on the road back to the Big Apple. [editor: "Drink before getting on the road?"]




Spike, Kara, Ron, Vince, Pillow


A fantastic day in a fantastic city with great people. Ah Sunday!