Pomp and pretzels

Mr. Food and I spent the weekend in the Philadelphia homelands of water ice and cheesesteaks. At last little sister L has graduated from high school. Can you believe it? (For those of you who haven’t seen her since she was about this high, you can’t, can you?) Well, she did it, so hip hip hooray for L! So, we spent the morning at my alma mater and capped it off with cake and … not wine, but iced tea. This is a high school graduation, after all. But you know how I like tea, so no complaints here.

That night we all (parents, siblings, a new wife, a date, and a husband) ate at Karina’s, an Italian-Spanish place in the South Philly-ish area. This is my lovely salad with little tomatoes, walnuts, and goat cheese. Simple, commonplace, but very nicely done. My pasta dish was also great, a homemade gnocchi lookalike (but made without potato) with mushrooms and things like that. I don’t really remember what else was in it but I finished it without a problem.

Then we zoomed (yes, zoomed, our driver can be a bit of a speedster) past the best known foodie spot in South Philly, the Pat and Geno’s corner. This is a picture of Geno’s cheesesteak empire, I believe. Well, unless it’s Pat’s…

The next morning was business as usual at the breakfast table. Almost what I’d eat at home, except I do prefer my snowman mug (thanks again, V) and we almost never have strawberries around. Close enough!

Can’t fly home without a decent soft pretzel. So sue me that I like these mass-marketed, buttered-up, salty, squishy, hot, marvelous wonders. You can even see them being made! It’s genius (get the Original). The best food we found at Philadelphia International– damn Chick-fil-a for being closed on Sundays!

Happy Fathers’ Day, Dad!