warm nights at home

It's been unreasonably, unseasonably, record-breakingly hot this week in southern California.  While Conrad's family in Michigan has been suffering some heavy snow, we've been reaching well into the 90s daily.  It should cool down a little after the weekend, but it's too much and far too soon.  Technically winter, but nope.  Summer temperatures already.  Ugh.

In such a week, I'm trying to keep the cooking to a minimum so as to turn on the stove infrequently and the oven even less.  Dinners like on Wednesday night (and a similar one at Van's on Tuesday):  a grazing board of things that I pulled out of the fridge and cupboards. 

That was just right for us - variety and ease all in one!  I poured us mocktails from a bottle of a pre-made mix (not a great drink, but nice for something a little different),

and we sat outside enjoying the evening air cooling off. 

hanging out in Vancouver with Van and with the drinks gang

Let's wrap up the Vancouver trip.  No travel for me for two weeks, and it feels right to get this most recent bit of travel put to bed, so to speak.

Conrad, as I mentioned, didn't come with us on the trip, so it was just me and Van

grabbing a few quick minutes in the United Club

at LAX before boarding for Vancouver.  An upgrade for me, but not for Van, alas.  Ah well.  We made it there at the same time anyway!  

It was early/mid-afternoon when we got to our hotel, not a lot of time to unpack and freshen up before heading on down to catch the Aquabus

over to Granville Island to meet Marie,

Rachel,

Allison, and Catriona for dinner at Dockside Restaurant.  We sat outside and enjoyed a fine early evening, catching up.  Fish and chips for me and a few others. 

Then we wandered across the island to The Improv Centre for a show. 

That was fun.  It wasn't too mature for Catriona, and the troupe did a great job of it.  A nice night for us all to get together before the big wedding day the next day.  Van and I caught the Aquabus back across False Creek and headed back to the hotel on what was a truly lovely night out in the big city.

Friday morning, after my walk and our coffees, Van and I moseyed down to the club to meet Allison and Catriona for lunch on the patio.  No urgency to our time there - a leisurely lunch (soba noodles and shrimp for me)

with a glass of wine and a fine view.  After that, though, it was time to get ready for and then head to the wedding.  And that was Friday in the city.

Saturday morning I was up early and out for a walk on my own before meeting my friend, Bryan, for more of a walk. 

We headed to the West End to a coffee shop and grabbed a light breakfast.  A lot of gab, more walking back.  It was great to see a non-wedding friend on a weekend devoted to that event.  Van eventually got himself going,

and we headed to meet up with Chris and Allister and others at a bar-ish place set up in the Plaza of Nations.  It was nice enough, but there was a Brazilian Fest set up all around our venue, and the constant live music was hard to have conversation over.  Van and I stayed an hour, by which point other friends and family were arriving.  We ceded our table space, headed into Chinatown to a store that specializes in barware, then walked back to the hotel.

Saturday dinner was an early one - it was the only reservation I could get for what was supposed to be three of us - at Nightingale.  I've enjoyed the food there in the past and was happy to go back.  We walked over and were promptly seated upstairs. 

I ordered their special martini,

Van had his own cocktail, and we shared some plates.

Roasted cauliflower with turmeric vinaigrette.

Buttermilk fried chicken.

Japanese sweet potato with mushroom XO and chive creme fraiche. 

A pasta with peas and mint.

Meatballs.

Carrot cake.

I think I like the cauliflower the most, but all of it was quite good.  Van wanted dessert wine as a nice treat with the cake, so we ordered the 375mL bottle and enjoyed that together.  After that, it was back to the hotel and a relatively early night.

Sunday morning I did a nice walk, first stopping at the Starbucks across the street. 

Our flight was at noon, and before we knew it, we were packed, checked out, on the Canada Line to YVR, through customs and such, arguing with the lounge people about access (I was right, they were wrong, they let Van in in the end), and then upgraded and boarded. 

A comfortable flight home for us at the end of a very pleasant trip north. 

Vedge and Vernick Fish

I'll write more generally about my few days in Philadelphia in the next (I think) blog entry.  First, however, let's talk about the food.  Specifically, two dinners I enjoyed.

The last time I was in Philadelphia, I was doing a monthlong cleanse diet.  Not quite vegan, but pretty close to it.  And it wasn't a problem.  After all, there is a gem of a vegan restaurant in Philadelphia:  Vedge.  Here's what I love about the place:  it doesn't serve up tofu or seitan or other such things pressed into shapes and called "Mom's meatloaf" or "turkey dinner" or stuff like that.  I have vegetarian friends, and they love stuff like that, for sure, and good for them.  I mean that.  Like what you like and eat it.  But if I am going to be meat free, I want to really enjoy vegetables and fruits and grains for what they are, not what they are pretending to be.  So I love places like Vedge or the now sadly gone Green Zebra in Chicago where the vegetables were the beautiful, glorious stars of the plate.

My dinner dates on Saturday in Philadelphia were Andrew and Ed, two good friends who both enjoy food.  Neither had been to Vedge before, so I was glad to bring them there for the first time.  It was an easy walk from the hotel.  We got to our table, ordered drinks (the Sea Legs for me, which I enjoyed),

and alerted the server that Ed had a food allergy that we needed to work around.  She took the menu back to the kitchen, and shortly after returned with it marked up.  There were eight dishes that we could share with Ed, one or two of them modified a little, and so we ordered them all.

I didn't get photos of everything.  The light was low, and I don't like being too much of a nuisance taking photos, especially when enjoying a meal family-style.  I liked everything that we ate - no surprise there - but my favourites were the spicy dan dan noodles,

the eggplant bracciole (which I remembered from previous times eating there),

the deviled celery root crepe, and the rutabaga fondue.  Look, here's how much I enjoyed things:  I willingly ordered and ate and enjoyed things with mushrooms, like the portabello carpaccio. 

Andrew and Ed enjoyed the savoury courses as well.  Opinions were more mixed on the ice creams (the potato chip ice cream wasn't what we hoped, though it was fine), but the blueberry buckle with sage ice cream was a clear winner at dessert.

It was a very good meal, just what I had hoped from the restaurant, and though Mike teases me that there are other worthwhile places in Philadelphia to try, I will come back to Vedge when next I am in town.

After the dinner, we didn't simply return to the hotel for drinks with whatever colleagues were hanging out in the bar.  Instead we headed to a comedy club

to watch Stand-Up with Strings.  Andrew's son, Eli, was playing bass throughout a multi-comedian set, and we were there to enjoy it all. 

Eli was terrific - my first time meeting him and hearing him play.  He improvised and responded to cues, intentional and otherwise.  The comedians were a mixed bag, and that's fine.  The last two were the best, each of them interacting with Eli, able to do so on the fly.  It was a fun way to end the evening. 

The three of us walked back to our hotels, and my long day (I had landed that morning at 5:30) came to a good end.

Sunday night was dinner at Vernick Fish.  I gather that the Vernick name is a known one in Philadelphia, and I liked what I saw when I was researching a dinner place online.  I hadn't realized it was essentially in the lobby of the Four Seasons, and it was perhaps a little more upscale than I had expected, but that's all fine.  The company with me (Van was there, Sara and her husband Peter, and Amy)

made for an excellent evening.  I didn't photograph every single thing at dinner (like my cocktail, the A Day in the Life, which was tasty, or the eggplant katsu we shared and that I think was the best thing on the table that night), but I did get shots of my oysters (delicious)

and the halibut (the accompaniments outshone the fish, which was - sorry! - a little overcooked)

and the desserts (an olive oil cake, a dark chocolate mousse, a banana pudding sundae, all of them quite fine). 

We had some good wines.  The setting was bright and attractive.  It was a good dinner.  I realize I have less to say about Vernick Fish than Vedge, and perhaps that's because Vedge is the more interesting to me.  But both meals were fine.

I think most of us had a nightcap at the hotel bar after that dinner - it is a conference, after all.  And that capped the last of the finer dining I had in Philadelphia!

dinner and a show

I told you that there would be more to come this week, and here we are!  A report out on a nice evening.  Ready?  Let's go!

A while back I saw an ad pop up on my Instagram feed for a production of La Cage aux Folles at the Pasadena Playhouse.  Now, I should explain:  I'm not much for live theatre.  Never gotten into it.  Oh, we saw Ron earlier this year.  And I have been to the Playhouse before.  Twice.  Twice only in a dozen years, and the first time was a musical production of Sleepless in Seattle that was pretty terrible.  I did enjoy seeing Fun Home a handful of years ago at the Ahmanson, but we're still at fewer than one time a year going to see a play or musical.  It's just the way we're wired, perhaps.

Anyway, I suggested to Conrad and Van that we go to the play for a change of pace, and the response was ambivalent at best.  So I set it aside and didn't think about it again.  And then Van and I went to Bar Chelou one night last month, and that visit coincided with the opening of La Cage, and boy, was it a big hoopla.  Actual celebrities there.  A big, gay crowd.  That set me to thinking maybe we should reconsider, and the guys were amenable.  I bought us tickets.

A show at the playhouse meant a dinner opportunity for the three of us at the restaurant that shares the complex:  Bar Chelou.  Conrad had not been there before, so it was a great opportunity to bring him there.  Van booked us early seats at the bar,

and we were able to have a leisurely meal.  Cocktails to start

- a Gibson for me that I vacillated between enjoying and finding too sweet. 

And then on to an array of food that we all shared:

• Crispy potatoes - so soft inside, they were like fried gnocchi
  
  
  
• Breakfast radishes with fromage blanc - these came with some toasted bread and made a nice, light bite
  
  
  
• Carrots - a dish they have become known for, a little peanut-y, the best carrot salad I have had because it goes savoury rather than embrace the sweet
  
  
  
• Sprouting cauliflower - served with a sauce that I still want atop a nice steak
  
  
  
• Pork chop with cabbage - simple and good, but perhaps my least favourite of the night, which sounds critical but isn't meant to be
  
  
  

Conrad was still a bit hungry, and we agreed, so we ordered a bit more

• Burrata toast with ham - the pickled peppers were piquant, he says, alliteratively
  
  
  
• Duck leg with couscous - so glad we tried this, and one I want to have again
  
  
  

And, of course, we had to have dessert!  We shared the caramelized banana bar and enjoyed it a great deal.

From there it was across the courtyard to the theatre

and our seats. 

No, no photos of the performance, of course not.  Not allowed.  And that's fine!  It's good to enjoy something.  We did enjoy it, for sure.  It's funny, I've been reading the reviews of La Cage aux Folles this morning, and they are decidedly mixed.  The LA Times gave it a generally good review, including praise for Cheyenne Jackson, one of the leads.  Another online publication said that Jackson (who is 49) is too young to play a papa and too beefcake-y.  Jeff Kahoon, who played the other lead, comes in for some praise but more criticism for not nailing the roll and the singing as previous actors have.  The young couple whose engagement sets off the conflict are praised for their performances.  And the drag queen troupe gets mixed reviews.

Not our experience.  We loved Jackson and Kahoon, we thought that the young couple were the weak spot in the production, and we delighted in the drag queens.  But I will concede a point a read, that the production is more fun than emotionally relatable.  And that's fine!  Conrad asked me this morning how much tickets were ($44 each), and we agreed that we very much got a lot for that.  A show we all enjoyed, one we left the theatre feeling great about.

A Wednesday night dinner and show, not our usual midweek night.  And a long night, too!  Totally worth it.